Che; 

Muz 
aSook 



H.; ■ 










40 A.D.- 1800 A.D. 



LIBRARXOL.CONGRESS. 



UNITED STATES OF AaiEEICA. 



THE 



BISHOPS' Blue Book 



BY THE 

EEV. J/ SANDEES EEED 

BECTOR OF TRINITY CHURCH, WATERTOWN, N. Y. 



NEW YORK 

JAMES POTT & COMPANY^ 

114 Fifth Avenue 

1894 




ip^^l 



/w 






Copyright, 1894, by 
JAMES POTT & COMPANY 



TROW DIRECTORY 

PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY 

NEW YORK 



PEEFACE 

Ever since I became a man I have been 
looking for a register of the prelates whose 
footprints have survived the centuries 
— to the guidance or inspiration of the 
Church. This Blue Booh is the outcome 
of my quest. I have gleaned from almost 
every field ; sometimes I have transferred 
landscape, figures, and all to my pages. 
Nothing is my own but the design and la- 
bor of construction. 

I do not fiatter myself that this book 
will find its way into the drawing-room or 
the railway-car : it is not literature. But, 
then, what Blue Booh is literature ? In 
the library of the curious, the serious, 8.nd 
the studious, however, I believe this skele- 
ton will take on '' solid flesh " and whisper 
of the existence of books long shut and 



iv Preface 

sealed. Its toucli will open some graves, 
and in its presence one will apprehend 

That the episcopate is coeval and co- 
extensive with the Church ; 

That some of the best men in the world 
have been in the episcopate ; 

That while each National Church has had 
its own peculiar usages, the bishop has 
always been there ; 

That the Church is a veritable democ- 
racy ; 

That the crozier is mightier than the 
sword ; 

That the State was once carried by the 
Church, and nurtured and developed by 
it into the Christian Nation ; 

That when the Church was carried by 
the State, the Church was muzzled, crip- 
pled, shorn, and infirm of purpose ; 

That the Church stands for human lib- 
erty and progress ; 

That the Church has been the real, ubi- 
quitous pioneer ; 

That the clergy degenerate into a caste 
when severed from the family ; that when 



Preface v 

the bishops of Syria, Egypt, Italy, Gaul, 
Ireland, Britain, Constantinople, Iceland, 
e^c, Avere veritable fathers, the Church was 
holy as well as Catholic and Apostolic. 

A cartulary of all the exceptional bish- 
ops of the Church, as I have discovered, 
would attain the bulk of a parish register. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

CHAPTER I. i-AGE 

Nolo Eptscopart, 1 

CHAPTER II. 
VOLO Episcopaui, 15 

CHAPTER III. 
Bishops Designate, 27 

CHAPTER IV. 
Age of Consecration, 35 

CHAPTER V. 
Number of Consecratous, .... 41 

CHAPTER VI. 
Laymen Raised to the Episcopate, . . 49 

CHAPTER VII. 
Deacons Raised to the Episcopate, . . 59 

CHAPTER VIII. 
ClIOREPISCOPI, G5 

CHAPTER IX. 
Coadjutor Bishops, 73 



viii Table of Contents 

CHAPTER X. PAGE 

Regionary Bishops, . ... 81 

CHAPTER XI. 
Titular Bishops, 87 

CHAPTER XII. 
Suffragan Bishops, 95 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Monastery Bishops, 101 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Episcopal Antecedents, . . . .111 

CHAPTER XV. 
Martial Prelates, 119 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Politicians and Statesmen, . . . 129 

CHAPTER XVII. 
* AWoTpioeiriffKOirot^ ...... 141 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
Epoch-Makers, 153 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Missionary Bishops, 169 

CHAPTER XX. 

Episcop^, o ..... . 189 



I 

NOLO EPISCOPARI 



"If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desirefch a 
good work."— /S'. Paul. 



CHAPTER I 
NOLO EPISCOPAKI 

Abbot Adrian, tlie African, one of the 
most learned ecclesiastics of his day, chos- 
en archbishop of Canterbury, persuaded 
the pope to consecrate in his room one 
Theodore, a Greek monk. 

Gall, the ascetic, popular preacher, and 
apostle of Switzerland, refused to leave his 
desert solitudes for the episcopal throne of 
Constance, and secured the election of the 
deacon John in his place. 

Dunstan, the famous Saxon, musician, 
artist, cunning craftsman, and abbot of 
Glastonbury at twenty-one, preferred the 
service of the king in early life to the dig- 
nities and responsibilities of the episcopate. 

Maiolus, abbot of Clugni for forty-six 
years, refused the papacy, though strongly 
urged to its acceptance - by the emperor 
and his court. Odilo, his successor, posi- 



4 Nolo EjriscojKiri 

tively declined to be made archbishop of 
L3/011S, though the pope sent him pall and 
ring, and peremptorily ordered him to as- 
sume the oiSce. 

The Seraphic Doctor refused the pri- 
macy of the Church in England, and was 
urged in vain to ascend the chair of S. 
Peter. The Angelical Doctor declined the 
offer of the patriarchate of Jerusalem, and, 
shortly after, a cardinal's hat, and then 
prevailed on the pope to recall the bull 
appointing him to the archbishopric of 
Naples. 

Lawrence O'Toole, son of an O'Toole 
prince of Imail, an hosta^ge at the age of 
ten in the hands of Dermot MacMurrogh, 
who afterward betrayed Ireland to Henry 
II., abbot of the monastery of Glenda- 
lough at the age of tv/enty-five, refused the 
archbishopric of Dublin, and was only 
prevailed upon to enter on that higher 
work by the resolute refusal of the electors 
to proceed to another election ; and so '' a 
genuine Irishman, Irish by birth, by edu- 
cation, and by consecration," became the 
second archbishop of the see that had just 
declared its independence of Canterbury. 



Nolo Episcopari 5 

Winfrid (later Boniface), the saint and 
missionary, refused the see of Utrecht, 
where he had been laboring, and went else- 
where to found a monastery, where pres- 
ently he baptized more than a thousand 
heathens. 

Master Nicholas de Farnham, " a man 
of laudable morals and knowledge," some 
time rector in arts at Paris, then medical 
practitioner at Bologna, and, later, a the- 
ologian of unusual erudition, refused the 
bishopric of Coventry, and, subsequently 
elected to the see of Durham, could scarce 
be prevailed upon to reconsider his deter- 
mination never to be a bishop. John A 
Lasco, a Polish nobleman, educated for 
the priesthood of the Roman Church, a 
friend and disciple of Zwingli and Erasmus, 
a reformer of no mean reputation, declined 
an offer to a bishopric, preferring to be 
crucified for Christ among strange breth- 
ren. Bernard Gilpin, Oo^on., a member of 
Christ Church, rector of Essington in 
Queen Mary's reign, and of Houghton un- 
der Elizabeth, a man highly esteemed for 
his piety, scholarship, boldness, charity, 
and humility, refused the see of Carlisle, 



6 Nolo E2oiscopari 

affirming his insufficiency for the discharge 
of so great a post. 

Desiderius Erasmus, the champion of 
German Humanism, the restorer of classi- 
cal learning, the translator of the New 
Testament, the paraphrast of the Gospels 
and Epistles, the protege and terror of 
prelates, cardinals, princes, and popes, the 
critic of monks and friars, of pilgrimages, 
indulgences, monastic vows, auricular con- 
fession, and of every superstition, the un- 
sparing censor of the absurdities of the 
prevailing scholastic method, of the abuses 
of the Church, of the moral corruptions 
of all ranks, a " Ulysses in caution," the 
** Balaam of Eome," a sceptic at heart, a 
left-handed friend of Luther, a lover of 
comfort more than a lover of the truth, a 
man of offensive levity and unhappy in- 
consistencies ; this man, ^' the first who 
brought the Church from Hales and Hol- 
cot to S. Cyprian and S. Augustine, from 
the fathers to the Scriptures themselves," 
refused the offer of a bishopric in France, 
and of another tendered him by Charles 
V. in Sicily, and might have had a fresh 
one yearly placed at his disposal, '*had 



Nolo Episcopari 7 

he but had the conscience to digest 
them." 

John Knox, yeoman, Eoman priest, Prot- 
estant preacher, court chaplain, people's 
advocate, stern, brutal, callous to human 
suffering, coarse, self-assertive, declined a 
bishopric proffered him by Edward, as 
having aliquid commune cum antichristo. 
Dr. Sampson, the greatest linguist, most 
competent scholar, and the profoundest 
theologian of his day, a frequent preacher 
of Spital sermons, the man whom Cran- 
mer and Ridley ordained loitliout the cleri- 
cal vestments, declined the offer of Nor- 
wich at the hands of Queen Elizabeth. 
Whitehead, " a great light of learning, and 
a most heavenly professor of divinity," one 
of the divines employed in revising the 
liturgy, would not consent to be made 
archbishop of Canterbury. Eainolds, div- 
inity lecturer at Oxford, famous for his 
reading, memory, wit, judgment, industry, 
virtue, probity, integrity, piety, and sanc- 
tity of life, abruptly refused a bishopric. 
And Dr. John Porter, renowned for his 
argument on the reasoning faculty in 
brutes, chaplain to the Prince of Wales, 



8 Nolo Episcopai'i 

preacher at Lincoln's Inn, in the course 
of the XYiith century, declined the see of 
Gloucester. 

To enumerate the prelates that were 
literally forced into the episcopate would 
require a reference to almost every Chris- 
tian century. 

Gregory, native of Neo-Csesarea in Pon- 
tus, a child of heathen parents, a disciple 
of Origen, in whom '^ the true sun began 
to rise " upon him, and only a layman as 
yet, thought to escape the burdens of the 
episcopate by flight. But the good prel- 
ate, Phoedimus, the bishop of Amasea, was 
equal to the occasion, and, ordaining him 
in his absence, declared him bishop of the 
city of his birth. This brought him to 
terms, and, returning, he was elevated to 
the highest order in the Church, with the 
usual formalities. 

Gregory, the fourth doctor of the Latin 
Church, of senatorial pedigree, the son of 
maternal piety and endowments, lawyer, 
prsetor, and chief magistrate of his native 
city, founder of a monastery and a hospi- 
tal, and Benedictine monk, summoned by 
the Koman people, on the occasion of the 



Nolo Episcopari 9 

plague, to succeed the dead pope Pelagius, 
entreated the emperor not to ratify the 
choice of the people, and incontinently 
fled when, in spite of his protest, the elec- 
tion was confirmed by the imperial edict. 
But his retreat was discovered, and he was 
brought back and forced into S. Peter's 
chair. 

Cyprian, lawyer, rhetorician, champion 
of the '^one holy, visible Church," fled 
on hearing that the clergy and people 
of Carthage wanted him for the vacant 
see, and would have escaped out of the 
window, had there been a passage open. 
Athanasius, that " puny little fellow," as 
Julian called him, whose steadfastness 
saved the Church from ignominious sur- 
render to Arianism, ran away on hearing 
that the fifty bishops in convention as- 
sembled had chosen him as successor to 
Alexander, late ''pope" of Alexandria. 
John of the " golden-mouth," lured outside 
the walls of Antioch to a martyr's chapel, 
was there apprehended by officers of the 
government, conveyed to the first post-sta- 
tion on the road to Constantinople, there 
placed in a public chariot, his remon- 



10 Nolo E})!scopar{ 

strances milieeded, Lis queries unanswered, 
liiiiTied on nndor a military escort from 
stage to stage, a closely guarded prisoner, 
and compelled nolens rolcns to accept the 
see of the great Eastern metropolis, to 
which he was dulj' consecrated February 
20, 398. Eusebius, of Ca^sarea, had such 
a reluctance to accept the episcopate that 
it was necessary to emploj" military force 
to induct him into his bishopric. Nilam- 
nion, a solitary, elected bishop of Gera 
(Egypt), about the time of the expulsion 
of Ohrysostom from Constantinople, died 
from terror when the archbishop of Alex- 
andria came to ordain him. 

Mark II., '' the new Mark," as the Copts 
call liim, hid himself among the monastic 
cells in the desert, on learning of his ele- 
vation to the see of Alexandria, and could 
not be secured without an official order 
to bring him, ''if necessary, in chains." 
Simeon, an ascetic, elected to the see of 
Edessa (761\ refused point-bkmk, and Avas 
violently dragged before George, the pa- 
triarch, and forcibly ordained. 

Ambrose, governor of Mikm, hearing 
the church ring with the shout, ^i)nbrose 



Nolo Episcopari 11 

is bishop, ran out and feigned himself a 
man of rough, merciless humor, and finally 
stole away at midnight that he might not 
be compelled to. take up the crozier. An- 
selm, renowned in history for his exaction 
of the privilege of investiture, had the pas- 
toral staff thrust into his hand and held 
there during the ceremony of his election 
to the archbishopric of Canterbury. Beck- 
et, too, immortal for his sacerdotal preten- 
sions, was exalted against his will to sit in 
that self-same seat of Augustine. Ildefon- 
sus, abbot of Agali, in Spain, in the viith 
century, was forced into the see of Toledo. 
Aldhelm, '' the first Saxon whose writings 
have been preserved, the first man of Teu- 
tonic race who cultivated the Latin muse," 
the monk who composed canticles and bal- 
lads, and sung them on the bridges to win 
and indoctrinate the Saxon peasants who 
left church in haste as soon as mass was 
over to avoid the sermon, was compelled 
to accept the bishopric of Sherburne. 
Nicholas L, elected pope 867, fled and hid 
in the Vatican, but was drawn from his 
place of concealment and raised to the 
apostolic throne in spite of all his protests. 



12 Nolo Episcopari 

Desiderius, abbot of Monte Casino, again 
and again, on the death of Hildebrand, re- 
fused to accept the papacy, until at last he 
was seized by a popular assembly, hurried 
into a church, and proclaimed pope under 
the name of Victor III. Four days later he 
fied back to Casino as the simple abbot, 
though, after the expiration of a year, he was 
prevailed upon to resume the pontificate. 

William, abbot of Challis, whose name 
was found on the billet drawn forth from 
beneath the corporal on the altar, and 
whose nomination thus made was con- 
firmed by a majority of the clergy there 
convened, was seized with a trembling and 
a fear he could not control, and could not 
be persuaded to accept the archbishopric 
of Bourges except at the order of the su- 
perior of the society, the abbot of Citeaux, 
and of the papal legate. 

Colman, the man who had the three 
pets — the cock that crowed at night, when- 
ever the turn came for Colman to rise 
and say his office ; the mouse that nibbled 
his ears, or fingers, or toes till he got up ; 
and the blue-bottle fly that hopped on as he 
read, and formed a stop at the end of each 



Nolo Episcopari 13 

sentence, and sat quiet at the end of a 
paragraph, if he were suddenly called away 
— was made bishop against his will, and 
actually ran away and hid himself there- 
after for the space of seven years- S. Cos- 
mas, of Jerusalem, who holds second place 
among Greek ecclesiastical poets, was con- 
secrated bishop of Maiuma, the port of 
Gaza, to his own great regret. Chrysan- 
thus, ex-governor of Italy, and late lord 
lieutenant of the British Isles, was dragged 
out of his hiding-place and invested with 
the bishopric of the Novatians at Constan- 
tinople. Fulgentius, monk, abbot, confes- 
sor, manufacturer of mats and umbrellas 
by the sea-shore, was forcibly elevated to 
the episcopate of Ruspe, in Africa. 

Otto, the chaplain of the excommuni- 
cated Henry, refused the bishoprics of 
Augsburg and Halberstadt, and, but for the 
intervention of the king, who thrust the 
pastoral staff into his hands and placed 
the ring upon his finger, would have de- 
clined the nomination to the see of Bam- 
berg, too. Laurence Justiniani, the Vene- 
tian, consented to the consecration only at 
the command of the pope. Thomas of 



14 Nolo Episcopari 

Villanova would not undertake the respon- 
sibilities of the archbishopric of Granada, 
and only the command of his superiors in 
the Augustinian order prevailed on him 
subsequently to accept the see of Valencia. 

It is also on record that some of the 
men whose names were mentioned in con- 
nection with the vacant bishoprics of their 
day, fled beyond recovery, and some even 
mutilated their persons. 

Justus, a child of heathen parents, in 
the ivth century, hid himself so that he 
eould nowhere be found, and so escaped 
election to the see of Poitiers. Eusebius, 
surnamed Emisenus, also put himself out 
of the road. Mor Ephrem, whose odes the 
Syrians sang, and whose native sweetness 
is distilled in his incomparable rhythms 
on the Nativity, hearing that he was ap- 
pointed bishop of some town, ran to the 
market-place and exhibited himself in such 
an indecorous manner that those who had 
come to carry him away departed, believing 
he had gone insane. Ammonius, the monk, 
cut off his own right ear, that he might dis- 
qualify himself for the episcopal office his 
friends were about to force upon him. 



n 

VOLO EPISCOPARI 



Ut quaeratur cogendus, rogatus recedat, invitatus refu- 
giat, sola illi sufFragetur necessitas obsequendi. — Law of 
Leo and Anthemius, 



CHAPTEE II 

VOLO EPISCOPAKI 

Novatian, a Phrygian, a Stoic, baptized 
on his sick bed and never sealed in con- 
firmation, yet a presbyter of the Church of 
Eome, ambitious of the episcopate, selected 
two desperate characters to fetch him three 
bishops from some remote part of Italy, as 
if they were needed to allay the dissensions 
that had arisen at Eome ; who, when they 
were come and were heated with wine and 
surfeiting, were induced, at the hour of four 
in the afternoon, none of the clergy or 
people being present, to lay their hands on 
him and ordain him bishop (251) of the 
Cathari, or " pure ones " (protesting against 
the discipline which allowed the lapsed to 
return to the communion of the Church), 
the first body of "Dissenters," and des- 
tined to last on into the Yiith century un- 
der the name of Novatians. 
2 



18 Volo Episcopari 

Ischyras, though not admitted to holy 
orders, having been ordained by none but 
the presbyter CoUuthus, assumed the title 
of a priest and exercised the sacred func- 
tions, and, when detected and reduced by 
a synod, fled to Eusebius, of Nicomedia, 
who promised him a bishopric if he would 
frame an accusation against the hated 
Athanasius, then in such ill-odor that it 
was enough to charge him with having or- 
dered his presbyter Macarius to break into 
the chancel, while Ischyras was officiating, 
and to overturn the communion-table, break 
in pieces the sacramental chalice, and burn 
the holy books; and for this indictment, 
which he subsequently acknowledged under 
his own hand to be false in every particular, 
he was presently ordained bishop of Mareo- 
tis by those who deposed Athanasius, and 
was one of the prelates (349) at the synod 
of Sardica. 

Cyril, in order to ascend the episcopal 
throne of Jerusalem, consented to repudiate 
his ordination by Maximus, the confessor, 
the venerable prelate of that city, and serv- 
ing a while as a deacon, was rewarded (359) 
with the coveted bishopric. 



Volo Episcopari 19 

On the death of Liberius, bishop of Eome 
(366), two rival candidates presented them- 
selves, and, before order could be restored, 
one hundred and thirty-seven dead bodies 
covered the precincts of a church around 
which a bloody battle had been fought. 

The see of Sebasteia falling vacant (ciVc. 
374), Aerius and Epiphanius both became 
candidates, and, the choice falling on the 
latter, his friend refused thenceforth to 
fellowship with him or to forgive him in 
his heart.' 

Porphyrins, who was standing for the 
patriarchate of Antioch, frightened away 
his rival Constantius, and, locking himself 
and his three consecrators in the chief 
church, was (404) precipitately elevated to 
the episcopate, the service being so hurried 
that some portions of the rite were alto- 
gether omitted, the ordaining prelates, hav- 
ing received the promised pecuniary satis- 
faction, hasting to flee across the mountains. 

1 The biographer of Chrysostom observes that on the 
death of Nectarius, bishop of Constantinople (397), the 
office was so eagerly coveted that ' ' there came priests un- 
worthy of the priesthood, besetting the palace gates, re- 
sorting to bribery, falling on their knees even, before the 
people. '* 



20 Volo Episcopari 

Sabbatius, a Jewish convert, a presbyter, 
aiming at the episcopate, and promising, 
on his oath, never to aspire to the dignity, 
separated himself from the Novatians, and 
organized another sect for the observance 
of the Paschal Feast after the manner of 
the Jews, and shortly {circ, 412) prevailed 
upon a few nndistinguished prelates to con- 
secrate him bishop, among his consecrators 
being one Hermogenes, whom he had pre- 
viously excommunicated with curses on ac- 
count of his blasphemous writings. 

Peter, a fuller, a monk, intent on the 
see of Antioch, stirred up a tumult in 
the city, hoping to get rid of Martyrius, 
the occupant of the see, and, his plan suc- 
ceeding and the patriarch being expelled 
(469) as a Nestorian in disguise, the am- 
bitious and unprincipled adventurer, who 
had been brought up to scour, cleanse, and 
thicken cloth, soon found himself in the 
place of the prelate he had dethroned : an- 
other proof that mckedness often outruns 
virtue here, and that falsehood is out of 
reach before truth gets her shoe-strings tied. 

When the see of Constantinople was 
vacant (489), the Emperor Zeno (in whose 



Volo Episcopari 21 

reign theHENOTicoN was issued), solicitous 
for the welfare of the Church and craving 
some sign from heaven for his guidance in 
the selection of a new patriarch, placed on 
the altar of the great church of the im- 
perial city two sheets of paper — the one 
blank, and on the other a prayer to God 
to send His angel fco w^ite on its fellow the 
name of the person whom He HimseK had 
chosen. Forty days he fasted, and the 
Church. On the outskirts of the city there 
stood the church of S. Thecla, a small 
suburban edifice, whose pastor was one 
Frayitta, the presbyter; and, during the 
progress of the fast, it occurred to him that 
it would be difficult to find a man better qual- 
ified for the office than himself, and that 
his name ought, somehow, to be written on 
that blank slip. He knew a eunuch of the 
palace, and a bribe secured his services. 
When the casket was opened, Fra^dtta, the 
presbyter, was found to be approved of God. 
Great was the joy of the Church and the 
court. Four months later Fravitta was dead, 
but the eunuch had not seen the promised 
gold. Hurrying to the executors of the 
dead bishop, he told the story and claimed 



22 Volo Episcopari 

his reward. And when the emperor heard 
thereof he bewailed his own simplicity, and 
ordered the clergy to proceed to an election 
after the usual manner of the Church. 

John, a presbyter, the steward of the 
church of S. John the Baptist (the bishop's 
church), of Alexandria, went to Constanti- 
nople (480) to obtain leaye for the Alexan- 
drians to elect their own bishop on the de- 
cease of the then incumbent — a very aged 
man — and made use of his opportunities to 
attempt his own appointment, but was com- 
pelled to take oath that he y/ould never 
aspire to the see of Alexandria. On the 
death of Timothy, which occurred shortly 
after his return, promising and showering 
money wherever he went, he procured his 
own nomination and election. Expelled 
by the emperor, he v^ent to Kome, and, 
complaining that he had been banished 
from his rightful see for upholding the 
doctrines of Leo and the council of Chal- 
cedon, won the bishop sitting in S. Peter's 
chair, who, making the discovery shortly 
after that the appellant had been guilty of 
perjury, and that for this and nothing else 
he had been ejected from the see of Alex- 



Volo Episcopari 23 

andria, broke his head with the precious 
balms of the righteous. Of this Timothy, 
whose episcopal throne this steward cov- 
eted, it is recorded that he had instigated 
the murder of his predecessor, inspired to 
the deed by the vision of an angel, and 
had been consecrated by two deposed bish- 
ops ; and he was nicknamed Timothy the 
Cat {^liiriis), because of the revelations 
he whispered in darkness and disguise 
through the cells of the monastery. 

Gall, the son of noble parents in the 
province of Gaul (vith century), a monk 
and a deacon, lodged, on his return to his 
native city, with his uncle Impetratus, 
a priest, whose house was beset with peo- 
ple in quest of a successor to their la- 
mented prelate Quintinian, and who had 
made up his mind to put his nephev^^ in 
the vacancy, and had, accordingly, divid- 
ed the counsels of the meeting, looking 
to the king for a decision in his favor, to 
whose help the young man was to appeal 
in person. Gall was in bed when this in- 
telligence was brought him, and, ere ever 
he had time to arise, a priest came in to 
see him, speculating as to the coming man. 



24 Volo Episcopa7'i 

" What is tlie use of the people troubling 
their heads about it ? " blurted out the 
deacon. ''I am going to have the bishop- 
ric, and now I am off post-haste to the 
king ; and, mind you, v/hen you hear that 
I am on my return, bring forth the late 
bishop's horse to meet me, that I may ride 
into Clermont on its back." We can for- 
give the priest for reading him a lecture 
and for shaking him, although we regret 
that he hurt him against the bed-post. 
But Gall was no sooner left alone than he 
dressed and started off to see the king, out- 
riding and outwitting '' the committee," 
sent to notify the court that the clergy had 
filled the vacant see, and securing the 
Tojsl nomination ; and, having been or- 
dained priest, and having enjoyed a din- 
ner given him by the citizens at the ex- 
pense of the kingdom, he was escorted into 
Clermont sitting on the episcopal charger, 
led by the clerical assailant and a host of 
the clergy and inhabitants, all of whom he 
won and greatly helped and blessed. 

For the bishopric of Rome (536) Vigi- 
lius, the deacon, paid the sum of two hun- 
dred pounds in silver. 



Volo Episcopari 25 

Habencius, desiring the see of Astigi, 
accused Martianus, its occupant, of prac- 
tising divination and of admitting women 
to his apartments, and, on his deposition, 
on these charges, by a council of Seville 
(633), the prosecutor was intruded into his 
place. Five years later, the case having 
been thoroughly investigated, Habencius 
was found guilty of conspiracy against the 
fame and fortune of a brother, and ordered 
to restore the see and retire in penitence. 

Chramlier, bishop of Embrun, obtained 
his see by means of a forged deed, and he 
had never been consecrated bishop. 

In 1044 the Eomans sold the papal 
crown to Sylvester III., and shortly after 
it was purchased by John Gratian, an arch- 
deacon, for one thousand pounds of silver. 

In the year 1050 Ulf, a Norman, who 
could scarcely read the missal or his brev- 
iary, was appointed to the see of Dorches- 
ter by Edward the Confessor, but, on re- 
pairing to Rome for confirmation, the pope 
was so outraged at his ignorance and as- 
surance, that only the bribery of the papal 
officials availed to fix him in the bishopric. 

Hippolytus d'Este, archbishop of Milan 



26 Volo E'piscopari 

at eleven, cardinal at thirty, and diocesan 
of eight bishoprics at one time or another, 
tried for the papacy on the death of Julius 
III., and again on the death of Marcellus 
II., and once more on the decease of Paul 
IV. 

Gerald de Barry {Giraldus Cambrensis), 
a famous writer, the historian of the " Con- 
quest of Ireland," and the compiler of the 
"Itinerary of Wales," an archdeacon of 
Brecon {d. 1220), is said to have spent 
the last forty years of his life in fruitless 
efforts to become bishop of S. David's, 
where he had been educated under the eye 
of his uncle, the diocesan at that time. 

Eanke tells us that, when the cardinals 
were in conclave, on the. death of Paul 
III., seeking a successor, Cardinal Monte, 
one of their number, exclaimed : '' Elect 
me, and the day following I will make you 
my intimates and favorites of the whole 
college of Cardinals." This he spake to 
five or six of his intimates. On 7 Febru- 
ary, 1550, he was elected. 

The reader will recall the forty-four anti-popes of Rome 
(215 to 1420), to two of whom allusion has been made. 



in 

BISHOPS DESIGNATE 



CHAPTER III 
BISHOPS DESIGNATE 

About the middle of the iiid century^ 
the see of Eome being yacant, the breth- 
ren being assembled in the church for the 
purpose of ordaining him that should suc- 
ceed to the episcopate, a dove flew through 
the building and alighted on the head of 
one Fabianus, who had come in with others 
from the country. Immediately the whole 
congregation, as if moved by the Spirit 
of God, cried out with one voice. He is 
tvorthy, and forthwith took and placed 
him upon the episcopal throne. 

A hundred years later the bishops of 
the province, learning of the death of 
Auxentius, the wily Arian bishop, met to- 
gether to elect his successor. The em- 
peror refusing to nominate anyone, as it 
was " too great an affair for him to meddle 
in," the prelates went to the cathedral to 



30 Bishops Designate 

take counsel of the people, and there 
Arians and Catholics raised such a storm 
between them that the presence of the 
gOYernor of the city was requisite to the 
preservation of the peace. On the conclu- 
sion of his grave exhortation to the excited 
concourse, the voice of a child rang out, 
Ambrose is hisliop. It was but an instant 
and the whole company shouted, Ambrose 
is bishop, Ambrose is bishop; and from 
that hour he knew no rest until he had 
consented to assume the duties of the 
bishop of Milan. 

On the 26th day of September, 426, 
Augustine, having taken his seat in the 
Church of Peace, in the district of Hippo 
Eegius, a large congregation of clergy and 
laymen standing by, rehearsed the in- 
firmities which old age had laid upon him, 
and asked leave to designate the presby- 
ter Eraclius, a man of wisdom and unusual 
modesty, as his successor. TAventy times 
they all cried out, He is worthy and just. 
Five times they said. Well deserving, well 
worthy ! Six times again, He is worthy 
and just. Bishop Augustine expressing his 
desire that their action should be placed 



Bishops Designate 31 

on record, the people once more shouted 
twelve times, Agreed ! agreed ! and then 
six times, Tliee^ our father ! Eraclius, our 
hishop ! Again resuming speech, when 
silence had been obtained, the aged prel- 
ate asked for their subscription to the 
record. And twenty - five times they 
shouted. Agreed ! agreed ! Then twenty- 
eight times, It is ivorthy, it is just. Then 
fourteen times, Agreed ! agreed ! Then 
twenty-five times. He has long been loorthy, 
he has long been deserving ! And the elec- 
tion was complete. 

Three years later, Hilary, who had fol- 
lowed his relative Honoratus, the arch- 
bishop, to the city of Aries, and who, on 
his death, was returning to the monas- 
tic community on the peaceful isle of Le- 
rins, was apprehended on the way by mes- 
sengers from the citizens, brought back, 
and forthwith elected, confirmed, and con- 
secrated in the room of Honoratus, who 
had designated him as his successor. But 
never had the pursuing force recognized 
the fugitive, but for a dove that settled on 
his head, and by that sign they knew him, 
the designate of heaven as well. 



32 Bishops Designate 

In the same centiuy, one Samson, son of 
Amwn Dhu, a petty prince in Armorica, an 
ascetic, a deacon, a priest, an abbot, and a 
hermit, had a dream in ^^'hich he saw three 
bishops in glittering vestments, with gohl 
mitres on theii' heads (the apostles Peter, 
James, and John), and heard them recite 
oyer him the office of ordaining bishops. 
Never had man, since the earliest days, 
such good authority for assiuning the du- 
ties and office of the episcopate. No won- 
der he felt himself a bishop all the way 
through ! In the earlv mornino; lisrht he 
repahed to the prelate who had ordained 
him deacon and informed him of his vi- 
sion. What was Dnbricins to do ? What 
could be done with a man injected into the 
succession by the apostles themselves ? 
Clearly it would never answer to re-con- 
secrate him. But he could give him a 
bishopric. And this he did, sending him 
to Dol, in Wales, and with him two co- 
adjutor bishops consecrated in the usual 
way ! 

Eemigius was a noble, and only twenty- 
two, when, standing in the gi-eat church at 
Eheims, where the clergy and people were 



Bishops Designate 33 

assembled to elect a bishop, a ray of sun- 
light, piercing a small clere-story window, 
fell on his head and irradiated his face, 
transfiguring and glorifying his features 
until it seemed as though the Spirit of 
God had set His seal upon him and desig- 
nated him as the man of His choice. In- 
stantly there was a cry for the ordination of 
Eemigius, and all the congregation, as one 
man, declared for him as their bishop. 

Hildebrand, the iron-handed blacksmith's 
son, had been the counsellor of four popes, 
and, as archdeacon, was officiating at the 
obsequies of Alexander H., when all at 
once the walls of the old Lateran church 
rang with the shout, Hildebrand is j^ope ! 
8. Peter chooses the Archdeacon Hilde- 
brand ! In vain the archdeacon's protest. 
Cardinal Hugh the White stepped to the 
front and, in a voice that drowned even 
the roar of the multitude, cried out : 
" Well know ye that since the days of the 
blessed Leo this prudent archdeacon has 
exalted the Eoman see, and delivered this 
city from many perils. Wherefore we, the 
bishops and cardinals, with one voice, 
elect him as the pastor and bishop of your 
2 



34 Bishops Designate 

souls." Then again the people thundered, 
It is the will of S. Peter. Hildebrand is 
poj)e. And immediately he was led to the 
papal throne and enthroned in the chair of 
S. Peter. 

Of William, Abbot of Challis at the 
opening of the xinth century, it is written 
that he was elevated to the archbishopric 
of Bourges by the circumstance of his name 
appearing on the billet drawn forth from 
under the corporal, where it had been 
placed with several others before mass; 
an indication, as the majority of the clergy 
present thought, that he was to be num- 
bered with the apostles. 



IV 

AGE or CONSECEATION 



*'But concerning bishops, we have heard from our 
Lord that a pastor who is to be ordained a bishop for the 
churches must be . . . not under fifty years of age." 
— Apost. Constitutions. 

Six councils (314-581) named thirty as the minimum age. 



CHAPTEE IV 

AGE OF CONSEOEATION 

The great Athanasius could not have 
been more than twenty -eight (twenty- 
three, say some) at the time of his conse- 
cration. The haughty and contentious 
Hilary, the champion of the autonomy of 
the Gallican Church, was consecrated (429) 
archbishop of Aries at the age of twenty- 
nine. John, surnamed The Silent, was 
consecrated (481) bishop of Colonia at the 
age of twenty-seven. Eemigius, the apos- 
tle of the Franks (457-530), was conse- 
crated at the age of twenty-one. Kenti- 
gem (S. Mungo), who, early in the vith 
century, evangelized the region lying be- 
tween Solway Firth and the Clyde, the 
founder of the monastery and see of S. 
Asaph, in Wales, the true apostle of the 
Scots, was made bishop at the age of 
twenty-four. About the same time Leo- 



38 Age of Consecration 

nore, a disciple of S. Iltut, in Wales, a 
youth of brilliant abilities, was advanced 
to the episcopate at the age of fifteen, and 
immediately crossed over into Brittany, at 
the head of seventy-three disciples, and 
founded a monastery for the better prose- 
cution of his work of evangelization. 

In the year 925 a child of five years was 
made archbishop of Kheims. Thirty years 
later the occupant of S. Peter's chair (John 
XII.) was a youth of eighteen. Benedict 
IX. (1033-48) was but a boy of ten when 
elected to the papacy. 

At the age of twenty-five Cellach be- 
came primate of Ireland and sat in the 
synod of Eathbreasil (1172), at which the 
papal legate presided. Celsus, archbishop 
of Armagh, was consecrated (1105) at the 
age of twenty-six. 

8. Louis, the second son of Charles II. 
and Mary of Hungary, the brother of 
Charles Martel, several years a prisoner 
for the good behavior of his father, a 
priest, the friend and benefactor of the 
cobbler's son of Cahors, w^ho subse- 
quently became Pope John XXII., at 
Avignon, was elevated to the bishopric of 



Age of Consecration 39 

Toulouse at the age of twenty-two (1296), 
and died the following year. 

The bishopric of Metz falling vacant 
(1383), the pope conferred it on Peter of 
Luxemburg, son of Guy of Luxemburg, 
count of Ligny, lord of Eoussy, then arch- 
deacon of Dreux, and also advanced him 
at once to the cardinalate. The newly 
made bishop, aged fourteen, made his 
entry into his diocese sitting on an ass 
and with his feet unclothed. He died in 
his nineteenth year. 

Hippolytus d'Este, son of Hercules 
d'Este, duke of Ferrara, and Eleanor of 
Arragon, was archbishop of Strigonia at 
the age of eight ; a cardinal at seventeen ; 
and, before he was twenty-one, held the 
archbishoprics of Capua and Milan, and 
the bishoprics of Ferrara, Agria, and Grau 
(1497). His nephew, Hippolytus d'Este, 
son of Alphonso I., duke of Ferrara, and 
Lucrezia Borgia, who succeeded him, was 
promoted to the archbishopric of Milan at 
the age of eleven. 

Charles Borromeo (1560), at the age of 
twenty -two, and not yet in deacon's orders, 
was put in possession of the see of Milan 



40 Age of Consecration 

by his uncle, Pope Pius IV. Richelieu, 
cardinal and statesman, was consecrated 
bishop in his twenty-third year. 

George Neville, son of Richard, earl of 
Salisbury, canon of York and Salisbury at 
the age of fourteen, was appointed bishop 
of Exeter when he had attained the age of 
twenty-tlu'ee, and, '*as he could not be 
consecrated for four years, he had a bull 
to receive tlie profits." 



V 
NUMBEK OF CONSECEATOES 



We command that a bishop be ordained by three 
bishops, or at least by two ; but it is not lawful that he be 
set over you by one. — Apostolical Constitutions^ Hi., 30. 

Let a bishop be ordained by two or three bishops. 
— Apostolical Canons, i. 

Let no bishop be ordained without three bishops. If 
any think that he alone is sufficient for the ordination of a 
bishop, let him understand that no one can presume to do 
this unless he has seven other bishops associated with him. 
— Couoicil of Aries (a.d. 314), Can. xx. 

It is especially fitting, that a bishop be appointed by all 
the bishops who are in the province. But if such a thing 
be difficult . . . it is becoming that at least three be 
gathered to the same place, the absent bishops also giving 
their votes and expressing their agreement by letters ; then 
the ordination is to be performed. — Council ofMccea (a.d. 
325), Can. iv. 



CHAPTEE V 

NUMBEE OF CONSEOKATOES 

Fiacc, a pupil of Duffack, the poet-lau- 
reate of Ireland, was consecrated bishop by 
S. Patrick alone, and so was one Hogan, an- 
other '^ regionary bishop." ^ 

Keutigern, the base-born, the foundling, 
the man whose feet, shod with the prepara- 
tion of the gospel of peace, brought salva- 
tion to the Britons and Scots scattered 
from the mouth of the Clyde to the mouth 
of the Mersey, the founder of monasteries, 
the confessor of queens, was consecratecj 
to the episcopate by a single bishop sum- 
moned from Ireland for that purpose. 
Columba, of royal lineage, creator of thirty- 
seven monasteries in Ireland alone before 
he had reached the age of twenty-five, poet, 
scholar, warrior, penitent, exile, mission- 
ary, apostle, father of lona, went to Bishop 

1 Irish consecration was usually by one bishop only, and 
the custom survived till the xiith century. 



44 Number of Consecrators 

Etchain to be advanced by him to the 
episcopate, but was ordained priest instead, 
the prelate blundering. S. David, priest, 
monk, abbot, patron of "Wales, was conse- 
crated by one bishop only. Dubricius and 
Teilo, other Wel'sh bishops, had but one 
consecrator each. 

Augustine, the head of the Italian mis- 
sion in England, writing to Pope Gregory 
as to the validity of consecration by a 
single bishop, received answer (601 a.d.) : 
"In the English Church, while you are 
the only bishop, you cannot ordain a 
bishop otherwise than without other bish- 
ops." Fifty years later, Fridona, a Saxon, 
the first English archbishop, was conse- 
crated by Ithamar, the bishop of Roch- 
ester, alone — "the first English bishop 
consecrating the first English archbishop." ^ 
Theodore, archbishop of Canterbury, in 
the same century, the founder of the dio- 
cesan system of the Anglican Church, con- 
secrated, unassisted, three new bishops for 
the three new divisions of the diocese of 

1 Bede says that at this time there was no other bishop 
in all Britain canonically ordained besides Winni, bishop 

of the West Saxons. 



Number of Consecrators 45 

York, to wit : — Bosa to York, for the 
kingdom of Deira; Eata to Hesliam, with 
Lindisfarne, for the kingdom of Bernicia ; 
and Eadhed, for the province of Lindsey. 

Evagrius was elevated (389) to the see of 
Antioch by Paulinus alone, and his epis- 
copal authority was acknowledged by the 
African and Latin bishops. Siderius was 
rendered competent to assume the duties of 
the bishopric of Palaebisca by the imposi- 
tion of the hands of a single bishop, and 
Athanasius recognized the validity of his 
consecration. Augustine, bishop of Hippo, 
appears to have had but one consecrator. 
Bassianus was made (444) bishop of Ephe- 
sus by Olympus, the bishop of Thedosi- 
opolis, alone, and the act was recognized 
by the emperor and subsequently sanc- 
tioned by Proclus, the patriarch of Con- 
stantinople. Dioscorus, patriarch of Alex- 
andria, the successor of the anathematizing 
Cyril (444), was consecrated by two bishops 
only. Peter Mongus was (477) advanced to 
the same see " by two deprived bishops, if 
not by a single bishop," and, although de- 
posed by the emperor, he was subsequently 
reinstated as patriarch. On the death of a 



46 Number of Consecrators 

bishop of Rome (555) his successor, who 
took the name of Pelagius II., was con- 
secrated by two bishops — John, of Peru- 
sium, and Bonus, of Ferentium — assisted 
by Andreas, presbyter of Ostia} At the 
opening of the ixth century, Cardag and 
Jaballaha, two of the members of the Nesto- 
rian mission, were advised by Timotheus, 
the Nestorian patriarch, to ordain other 
bishops to succeed them, and to supply by 
a copy of the Gospels the lack of a third 
prelate to assist in the consecration. 

In 1528 Peter Magnusson, bishop of the 
see of Westeraes, consecrated a number of 
bishops for various vacant sees in Sweden ; 
and then (1531), assisted by one of them, 
Magnus Sommar, bishop of Strengness, he 
consecrated Laurence Peterson, archbishop 
of Upsala. In 1724, Cornelius Steenoven 
was consecrated archbishop of Utrecht, for 
the Jansenist Church, by Dominique Marie 
Varlet, a titular bishop, whose title was 
Bishop of Babylon, and who was at the 
time under sentence of suspension because 

1 Bellarmine cites the permission of certain popes to 
make up the number three by calling in the assistance of 
two or more mitred abbots, one bishop being always present. 



Number of Consecrators 47 

he had ministered the rite of confirmation 
at Amsterdam for the disfavored Church of 
Holland. The next year, on the death of 
Steenoven, this same appellate bishop, at 
the request of the chapter of Utrecht, con- 
secrated Barchman Waytiers to the vacant 
archbishopric. In 1733, Waytiers dying, 
Theodore van Croon, the choice of the 
chapter, was consecrated in his room by 
the same bishop of Babylon. In 1739, this 
Croon dying, the bishop of Babylon was 
again invited to consecrate for the Dutch 
episcopate, and in October of that year Pe- 
ter John Meindaerts was duly elevated to 
the vacant archbishopric. Eome still refus- 
ing to consecrate any bishops for the Dutch 
Church, and excommunicating all concerned 
in these functions, the new archbishop pro- 
ceeded (1742) to consecrate a bishop for 
Haarlem, and in 1758 added one for the see 
of Deventer. On the 11th day of August, 
1873, the bishop of Deventer consecrated 
Dr. J. H. Eeinkens, of Cologne, first bishop 
of the " Old Catholic Church " ; and on the 
18th of September, 1876, Bishop Eeinkens 
raised Edward Herzog to the episcopate, to 
serve the ** Old Catholics " in Switzerland. 



48 Number of Gonsecrators 

In the year 1733, Eoger Lawrence, the 
learned author of '^ Lay-Baptism Invalid," 
was consecrated as a bishop for the Non- 
jurors by Campbell, the Scottish bishop, 
acting alone and on his own authority. 
Subsequently these two bishops conse- 
crated Thomas Deacon. And a little later, 
Thomas Deacon elevated to the episcopate 
one J. P. Brown, presumably a brother of 
the earl of Annandale. Although the Non- 
jurors, as a regularly constituted church, 
with its bishops, priests, and deacons, be- 
came extinct with the death of Gordon, its 
last regular bishop, in 1779, yet the Sep- 
aratists continued some years longer to 
consecrate bishops of their own, — Thomas 
Deacon, in 1780, consecrating Price and 
Cartwright ; Cartwright, in 1795, consecra- 
ting Garnet ; and Garnet consecrating 
Boothe a little later. No Nonjuring bish- 
op has been consecrated since. 

On the repression of the Galilean Church 
by the malignant forces of the French Ee- 
volution, a body of new bishops were ap- 
pointed and consecrated by Talleyrand, 
the bishop of Autun. 



VI 



LAYMEN EAISED TO THE EPIS- 
COPATE 



CHAPTEE VI 

LAYMEN EAISED TO THE EPISCOPATE 

The first Gregory in the see of Nazian- 
zum, the father of the more famous Greg- 
ory, his successor, was not in orders when 
elevated to the episcopate. Simplicianus, 
a man of noble birth and great wealth, 
was but a layman when elected (346) to 
the bishopric of Autun. Leontius, bishop 
of Antioch (348), had been previously de- 
posed because of self-mutilation. Basil, a 
learned doctor of medicine, was suddenly 
ordained (366) to the see of Ancyra. Euse- 
bius was a layman and unbaptized at the 
time of his election (362) to the episcopal 
supervision of the Church in Cappadocian 
Csesarea. Hillary (Malleus Arianorum), 
the author of a "History of Synods," and of 
treatises against the Arians, was chosen 
bishop of Poitiers, in Gaul {circ. 353), 
while in the ranks of the laity and a mar- 
ried man. Marathonius was made bishop 



62 Laymen Raised to the Episcopate 

of Nicomedia (356) while paymaster of the 
prefects of the Prsetorian Guards. Epi- 
phaimis, a convert from Judaism (366), 
being in the forum one day, was seized by 
Pappus, the aged prelate of Cytria, taken 
into the church, and ordained, first deacon, 
then priest, and then bishop of the city of 
Salamis, in Cyprus (where they then were), 
the neighboring bishops consenting. Am- 
philochus, an advocate, was a layman one 
year (374) and a bishop the next. Am- 
brose was governor of the province of Mi- 
lan, and unbaptized, when the voice of a 
child designated him as bishop ; and eight 
days thereafter he was seated on the epis- 
copal throne. Nectarius was a senator and 
praetor of Constantinople, in the latter half 
of the same ivth century, when selected 
by the emperor to succeed Gregory Nazi- 
anzen in the administration of the affairs 
of that archiepiscopal see, and only a cate- 
chumen, and wore, at the time of his conse- 
cration, the white dress of the neophyte 
under the robes of the bishop. According 
to Chrysostom, Philogonius was taken from 
the judge's bench to fill the bishop's throne 
at Antioch. 



Laymen Raised to the Episcopate 53 

Synesius, a disciple of Hypatia, was an 
agriculturist, a sportsman, a pagan, a phi- 
losopher, as well as a married man, when 
elected (410) to the see of Ptolemais, in 
Egypt. Germanus, the hereditary ruler 
of Auxerre, a rough and eager huntsman, 
was seized by the mob, at the instigation 
of the aged prelate, while storming at the 
prelatical intolerance that had destroyed 
his antlers, which he had affixed to a tree 
in the centre of the town, dragged into the 
church, divested of his sportsman's gear, 
forced to his knees before the altar, or- 
dained to the priesthood, and then and 
there elected (418) to the episcopate of 
his native city, in the room of his consecra- 
tor, the venerable Amator, who presently 
passed away, as he had anticipated. Tha- 
lassius had been governor of lUyricum, and 
the emperor was intending to appoint him 
praetorian prefect, when Proclus, the arch- 
bishop of Constantinople, suddenly laid 
hands on him and ordained him (439) 
bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Gly- 
cerins had scarcely asserted the imperial 
title at Eavenna, in succession to Olybrius, 
when (471) a serious defeat decided him 



54 Laymen Raised to the Episcopate 

to abandon the crown he had thought to 
wear as emperor, and to put the episcopal 
mitre in its place, and to settle down to the 
duties of the bishopric of Salona. Euche- 
rius was only a monk, and, therefore, a lay- 
man, when he was ordained to the see of 
Lyons. Sidonius ApoUinaris {Gaius Sol- 
lius Modestus), the Latin author and poet, 
was only a layman when elected (472) to 
the episcopate of Lyons, and he accepted 
the office most reluctantly. 

Paulus, bishop of Meriden, was a phy- 
sician when summoned (530) to the epis- 
copal throne. Arnulf, the founder of the 
Carolingian dynasty (born 580), was forced 
to accept the bishopric of Metz while yet 
a layman. 

Aetherius, who died at the opening of 
the Yiith century, was a distinguished sen- 
ator at the court of King Guntram when 
made bishop of Lyons. Desiderius was 
prime minister and treasurer of Dagobert 
I. when raised to the episcopate. 

Gregory, who succeeded the indefatiga- 
ble Anglo - Saxon missionary, Willibrord 
(739), in the administration of the see of 
Utrecht, Germany, was never consecrated 



Laymen Raised to the Episcopate 55 

a bishop. Sergius, metropolitan of Ea- 
venna (760), rose to the episcopate from 
the ranks of the laity. Constantino was 
not in orders when (767) he was elected 
pope. Chrodegang was prime minister 
and referendarius when (762) made a 
bishop. 

Photius, elected to the patriarchate of 
Constantinople (858), was made monk, 
reader, subdeacon, deacon, priest, and bish- 
op within six days, and was then deposed 
for receiving orders by accumulation. 

Gregory, who was consecrated arch- 
bishop of Dublin 1121, and under whom 
Dublin shook off the yoke of Canterbury, 
was a simple layman at the time of his elec- 
tion. Henry II. gave Lincoln to his natu- 
ral son, a mere lad, who held the see for 
eight years, though he was not even a priest, 
when he resigned it to become his father's 
chancellor. And in the next century both 
Pope Innocent and King John conferred 
the see of Norwich on Pandulf, a papal 
deputy, who did not consent to consecra- 
tion until he had been seven years in the 
enjoyment of the revenues of the bish- 
opric. 



56 Laymen Raised to the Episcopate 

William von Ketteler, who was bishop 
of Miinster from 1553-57, when he re- 
signed, had never been consecrated. 
Bishop (?) Ernest, of Bavaria, was never 
consecrated, and yet he died, in 1612, arch- 
bishop of Cologne and bishop of four 
other sees. The same may be said of 
John, of Bavaria. And as late as 1640 the 
bishopric of Mentz was held by a layman, 
Henri de Bourbon, bastard son of Henri 
IV., to whom it was assigned by the great 
Eichelieu himself. 

It is, perhaps, worthy of mention in this 
place that the saintly Borromeo was only 
twenty-two, and not yet in deacon's orders, 
when the pope (1560) conferred on him 
the archbishopric of Milan, one of whose 
prelates, Octavian Archimboldi, had died 
(1494) unconsecrated, to be succeeded by 
a youth of twenty-one, and, after him, by a 
boy of eleven, who held in the course of his 
life, '^either in succession or together, as 
many as eight bishoprics," and who never 
entered the city of Milan during all the 
thirty years that he was its archbishop. 

King James determined to restore epis- 
copacy to Scotland, three divines of the 



Laymen Raised to the Episcojoate 57 

Scottish Presbyterian Kirk, Messrs. Spots- 
wood, Lamb, and Hamilton, were, on Oc- 
tober 21, 1610, advanced at once to the 
episcopate, without previous ordination as 
deacons or priests, the bishop of London, 
one of the consecrators, citing as precedents 
the cases of Ambrose, Nectarius, and Eu- 
cherius. Spotswood became archbishop of 
Glasgow ; Lamb, bishop of Brechen ; and 
Hamilton, bishop of Galloway. Fifty years 
later, Charles II. having come into the 
place of his father, episcopacy was again 
established in Scotland (1662), by a royal 
commission requiring the bishops of Lon- 
don and Worcester to ordain and consecrate, 
according to the rites and ceremonies of 
the Church of England, four Presbyterian 
divines, who, having renounced their Pres- 
byterian orders, " were, in one and the 
same day, ordained, first deacons, then 
priests, and last of all, bishops," and en- 
tered, respectively, into possession of the 
sees of S. Andrews, Glasgow, Dunblane, 
and Galloway. 



vn 

DEACONS EAISED TO THE EPIS- 
COPATE 



There is no evidence to show that when laymen or 
deacons were elected to the episcopate the intermediate or- 
ders were always first conferred. Cyprian was never a 
deacon. Basil the Great had been only reader and presby- 
ter. Augustine, of Hippo, skipped the diaconate. Martin 
of Tours, Eusebius of Csesarea in Cappadocia, Epiphanius 
of Salamis, Germanus, Thalassius of Caesarea in Cappa- 
docia, etc., were rushed into the episcopate from the ranks 
of the laity, some of them neophytes, some catechumens 
only, and, probably, were made bishops per saltum, as 
Bingham and Haddan assert was not infrequently the case, 
or received all orders by accumulation. Ambrose passed 
in eight days from the commonalty of the audientes or 
genuflect entes or coynpetentes to the throne of a prince of 
the Church. Bishop Gaerbod, missionary to the Franks, 
confessed that he had never been ordained deacon or priest. 



CHAPTEE VII 

DEACONS RAISED TO THE EPISCOPATE 

About the year 260, Eusebius, a dea- 
con, was appointed bishop of Laodicea, in 
Syria. When Csecilianus, archdeacon of 
Carthage, was hurriedly consecrated to the 
vacant see of that city (311), the oppo- 
sition, headed by a wealthy and bigoted 
v/idow, proceeded immediately to the elec- 
tion and enthronement of a counter-bishop, 
Majorinus, a lector. Athanasius was but a 
deacon when (328) he was elevated to the 
episcopate. On the death of the unfaith- 
ful Liberius, who had subscribed to the 
condemnation of Athanasius, the adherents 
of the Nicene Creed at Eome chose the 
deacon Ursinus as his successor. Martin 
of Tours seems to have been but an exor- 
cist (371) when, yielding to the popular 
clamor, the bishops, assembled to conse- 
crate a successor to the late prelate, laid 



62 Deacons Raised to the Episcopate 

their hands on him, dirty, unkempt, and 
poorly clad, and made him bishop of the 
Church of Tours. Chrysostom secured 
the see of Ephesus for Heraclides, one of 
his own deacons, and (in order to get rid 
of him, perhaps) ordained to the bishopric 
of Heraclea, in Thrace, Serapion, a dea- 
con, whose officiousness had involved the 
Church in Constantinople in no end of 
trouble. Augustine, the Numidian bishop 
of Hippo, offered the new see at Fussala to 
one Antonius, a reader, and the primate 
ordained him, though, as the historian re- 
marks, he had had no experience of any 
other office. 

Peter Mongus was only a deacon Avhen 
elected (477) by the Monophysites of Alex- 
andria to succeed Timotheus Aelurus in 
the administration of the affairs of that see. 
Esaias, a later occupant of the same epis- 
copal throne, made so glorious by Athan- 
asius, was also only in deacon's orders 
when raised to this fore-seat. 

Perthelm was deacon of Aldhelm of 
Sherborne, when he was made the first 
bishop of Galloway, Scotland, with his see 
at Candida Casa. Peter, bishop of Apa- 



Deacons Raised to the Episcopate 63 

mea (518), had been neither monk nor 
priest. Dioscorus, Agapetus, and Vigil- 
ius, three popes of the Yith century, were 
but deacons when elected successors to S. 
Peter. Deusdedit had not risen to the 
priesthood when he was elected (600) by 
the clergy and people to the see of Milan. 
Paulinus, the missionary, the first arch- 
bishop of York, was only a monk when 
(627) he was elevated to the episcopate. 
John, a disciple of Gallus (S. Gall), was a 
simple deacon when, at his master's insti- 
gation, he was forced (615) into the see of 
Constance. And John IV., Boniface III., 
Benedict IX., and Gregory VI., were 
deacons when it fell to them to wear the 
papal tiara. Thomas Becket hardly gained 
the archiepiscopal throne of Canterbury, be- 
cause of the protests of the bishops of the 
kingdom against the sudden elevation of a 
deacon over them. Priested one day, he 
was consecrated the next. 



VIII 

BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 

I.— CHOEEPISCOPI 



CHAPTEE VIII 

BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 

I. — CHOREPISCOPI 

These were the earliest assistant bishops, 
and did duty for the diocesan in villages 
and rural districts — hence their names, 
" country bishops " — and were without in- 
dependent authority or jurisdiction. 

They first appeared in Asia Minor, 
where, in the iiid century, they acted as 
vicarii of the city bishops. 

In the lYth century they had risen 
into such prominence that no fewer than 
fifteen of them had seats in the Nicene 
Council and subscribed to its proceedings, 
and their names were : Gorgonius, Ste- 
phanus, Euphronius, Ehodon, Theophanes, 
who subscribed themselves chorepiscopi of 
the province of Cappadocia; Hesychius, 
Theodore, Anatolius, Quintus, Aquila, chor- 



68 Bishops Without a Diocese 

episcopi of the province of Isauria ; Palla- 
dius and Selucius, chorepiscopi of the prov- 
ince of Coelosyria ; TheustinusandEulalius, 
cliorepiscopi of the province of Bithynia ; 
Endoemon, cliorepiscopus of the province 
of Cilicia. Two of these — Stephanas and 
Rhodon — had previously sat in the coun- 
cil of NeocDesarea {circ, 314), and sub- 
scribed themselves chorep)iscopi of the 
province of Oappadocia ; and this was the 
council that likened them (in canon xv.) 
to The Seventy, i.e,, as inferior to the 
bishops paramount. 

But more numerous than the diocesans 
(and Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea in 
Oappadocia, who died 379, had no fewer 
than fifty in his employ, and that, too, after 
the division of his province), and their 
equals in spiritual dignity, it soon became 
necessary to erect a breakw^ater against 
their ambition and encroachments. The 
council of Antioch (341) took vigorous 
hold of the question a.nd passed a canon 
(x.) limiting the field of each one, and put- 
ting it out of their power to ordain either 
a presbyter or a deacon '* without the 
bishop of the city to which his district is 



Chorepiscopi 69 

subject." Twenty-four years later the 
council of Laodicea enacted a canon 
(lvii.) forbidding the ordination of any 
more bishops for towns or villages, and 
directing that visiting presbyters should 
discharge their duties under the super- 
vision of the bishop of the city. At the 
council of Eiez, France, convened (439) by 
Hilary of Aries, Armentarius, a young 
noble who had been consecrated to the see 
of Embrun by two bishops only, was de- 
clared incapable of serving as diocesan, or 
of assisting at any episcopal consecration, 
and remanded to the tender mercies of 
some city bishop for employment as a 
cliorepiscopus, but without the power of or- 
daining even the lowest order. Only one 
chorepiscopuSy Caesarius by name, who sub- 
scribed himself as of Alee, was officially 
present at the council (431) of Ephesus. 
And at the council of Chalcedon (451) no 
chorepiscopus subscribed in his own name, 
only as the delegate of his diocesan. 

Were they real bishops, consecrated, as 
they were, by one bishop only, the bishop 
of the city to whose jurisdiction they be- 
longed ? To mention one instance out of 



70 Bishops Without a Diocese 

many, it is on record that a Cappadocian 
chorepiscopus, in this century, regardless 
of the decision of the ecumenical council 
of Antioch, ordained a priest for a mon- 
astery ; and Caesarius, another '^ country 
bishop," assisted (433) in the deposition of 
the patriarch Nestorius. That they sat 
and subscribed in the general councils is 
also evidence of the reality of their episco- 
pal character. 

Were they only presbyters, not bishops 
at all ? It is to the point that Theodoret, 
bishop of Cyrus, deposed for heresy, ap- 
pealing to Leo, bishop of Eome, for his 
decision, intrusted his petition to " the 
reverend and godly presbyters, Hypatius 
and Abramius, chorepiscopi.'' Among the 
Nestorians and Jacobite Syrians they were 
simply presbyters. 

That they were sometimes ambitious and 
a source of danger to the diocesan, is illus- 
trated in the misfortunes that overtook 
Nonnus, the bishop of Amid, who (505) 
commissioned his chorepiscopus, Thomas, 
to recall the people who had fled from 
Amid on the approach of the hostile Per- 
sians, and who made such use of his op- 



Chorepiscopi 71 

portunities, while away from home, that he 
secured the banishment of Nonnus to an- 
other see, and his own appointment to the 
one he had coveted and caused to be va- 
cated. 



IX 

BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 
II.-COADJUTOE BISHOPS 



CHAPTEE IX 

BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 
II. — COADJUTOR BISHOPS 

In his " Lives of Illustrious Men," Jerome 
tells us that to Narcissus, the aged prelate 
of Jerusalem, it was revealed that the next 
day a bishop would enter the city on whom 
should rest part of the episcopal burden 
of that apostolic see. The next day Alex- 
ander, bishop of Flaviopolis in Cilicia, on 
a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, reached 
the City of David and, as all were on the 
outlook, was immediately accosted. The 
question of coadjutorship, however, was 
so altogether new and novel that it was 
deemed essential to obtain the sanction of 
the whole episcopate of Palestine to the 
arrangement. The synod having been con- 
vened and unanimous consent given (213), 
Alexander entered on his duties, the first 



76 Bisliops Without a Diocese 

'* assistant bishop " on record, and without 
right of succession. 

Fifty or sixty years later Anatolius, an 
Alexandrian of great learning and charity, 
was consecrated coadjutor and successor to 
Theotecnus, bishop of Csesarea in Pales- 
tine, although, subsequently, on the death 
of his friend Eusebius, he undertook the 
episcopal oversight of the see of Laodicea 
in Syria. 

About the middle of the next century 
Macarius, one of the successors of Narcis- 
sus, ordained a certain Maximus bishop of 
Diospolis, but the members of the Church 
of Jerusalem insisted that Maximus should 
remain with them, and, after the death of 
Macarius, he succeeded to the government 
of the Church. 

Basil was summoned (365) from the re- 
tirement of his monastery to act as coad- 
jutor to Eusebius, the metropolitan of 
Ciesarea in Cappadocia, and it was dis- 
tinctly understood that his tenure of the 
office should expire on the death of the 
metropolitan. Five years later, Eusebius 
having passed to his reward, at a popular 
meeting of the Christians of the city, Basil 



Coadjutor Bishops 77 

was elected to the vacant see, by acclama- 
tion. 

On the death of Athanasius (373) Peter, 
his coadjutor, who had been selected by 
Athanasius as his fellow-laborer, and v/hose 
nomination had been confirmed by the suf- 
frage of all concerned and interested, was 
compelled to await the action of the neigh- 
boring bishops before succeeding to the 
patriarchal chair of Alexandria. 

Gregory of Nazianzus refused to serve 
as bishop of the see of Sasima, a squalid, 
noisy village to which he had been conse- 
crated, and became coadjutor to his father, 
the aged prelate of Nazianzus, but on the 
express condition, as he tells us in one of 
his orations (yiii.)j that he should not 
succeed him. 

Augustine began his episcopate as co- 
adjutor to Valerius, the aged diocesan of 
Hippo, and in ignorance of the canon of 
the council of Nice, which refuses two 
bishops to one see. Some years later 
(426), when he was himself in need of epis- 
copal assistance, he alluded to the fact, 
in the audience of the clergy and laymen 
assembled to give him an '^assistant," 



78 Bishops Without a Diocese 

and expressed the wish that his successor 
should not be exposed to the same censure. 
It has been said of Augustine that he did 
not " succeed," but " accede," to the see of 
Hippo Eegius. 

A bishop of Barcelona, in Spain, wishing 
to make a neighboring bishop his coadju- 
tor and successor, secured the consent of 
the metropolitan, the comprovincial bish- 
ops, and the whole of his own diocese, but 
when the pope (Hilary) heard thereof the 
whole proceeding was condemned, and a 
Roman Council (465) confirmed the papal 
sentence. Had this brother bishop not 
been also the heir of the incumbent of the 
see of Barcelona, the arrangement might 
have been allowed. 

In the year 722, Winfrid (later Boniface) 
was offered the coadjutorship of the see of 
Utrecht, with the right of succession to 
Willibrord, archbishop ; but it was per- 
emptorily declined. 

Agobard, who was made (813) coadju- 
tor to Leidrad, archbishop of Lyons, op- 
pressed by age and infirmities, was com- 
pelled, on the retirement of the archbishop 
to a monastery, three years later, to obtain 



Coadjutor Bishops 79 

the consent of the emperor and the entire 
synod of Galilean bishops, in order to qual- 
ify as his successor. According to another 
account, the emperor and some few bishops 
supported Agobard's nomination, but the 
great body of the Galilean episcopate op- 
posed it, and a synod at Aries decided that 
Leidrad should return to his see, and that 
in the future no more co-episcopi should be 
appointed. 



X 

BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 
III.— EEGIONAEY BISHOPS 



CHAPTEE X 

BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 

in. — REGIONARY BISHOPS. 

Next after tlie apostles, though separated 
from them by two full centuries, Dionysius 
(martyred 272), ''the apostle of the Gauls," 
is on record as a bishop without a fixed 
work or jurisdiction, free to settle where he 
will, and to choose his own field of labor. 
After years of successful effort among the 
heathen of that country, Gregory the Illu- 
minator was made (302) bishop of Arme- 
nia, with a roving commission. Ulphilas, 
"the apostle of the Goths"; Frumentius, 
"the apostle of the Abyssinians " ; Theoph- 
ilus, of Diu, " the apostle of the East In- 
dies," were all regionary bishops of the 
lYth century. 

The first bishops of Scotland, Ninian 
(d. 432) and Palladius (d 435), had no 



84 Bishops Without a Diocese 

fixed dioceses. There is a legend that in 
the middle of the next century one Leonore, 
a disciple of Iltut, in Wales, was conse- 
crated bishop by Dubricins, and that he 
elected to go to Brittany in search of hea- 
then to evangelize/ The head of the Ital- 
ian mission to England (596) was a Roman 
monk, who was consecrated later by the 
general title of the ^'Bishop of the Eng- 
lish," with permission to fix his see where- 
ever he would. 

In the year 626, Amandus, favored with 
a vision in which he saw S. Peter ordering 
him to carry the Gospel to the heathen, was 
consecrated regionary bishop and labored 
twenty years in the country of Ghent and 
Antwerp, and at the end of that time was 
appointed bishop of Mastricht. On the 
resignation of Emmeram, who had been 
consecrated regionary bishop, and subse- 
quently appointed to the see of Eatisbon, 
the services of another regionary bishop, 

1 It is stated that almost the only bishops in Bavaria dur- 
ing this century were those that had been consecrated else- 
where and had no jurisdiction. Subsequently canons were 
passed inhibiting the Scoti (or Irish bishops) from offi- 
ciating on the Continent, so numerous and headstrong had 
they become. 



Regionary Bishops 85 

from Poitiers, were secured (649), and lie 
was detained three years. Willibrord, the 
Anglo-Saxon missionary (690) in North- 
western Germany, was ordained bishop of 
the Frisians by the pope, and, when he 
went to Rome, his place was taken by Suid- 
bert, consecrated a regionary bishop by 
Wilfrid in Mercia (693). On Willibrord's 
return, Suidbert went to the land of the 
Bructerians, and later, dislodged by a Saxon 
invasion, founded a monastery and mis- 
sionary school at Kaiserwerth. Paulinus, 
the first archbishop of York, had been or- 
dained (625) bishop of the Northumbrians. 
Corbinian, a regionary bishop, succeeded 
Bishop Rupert, "the apostle of Bavaria" 
(716), who had returned to his former see 
of Worms, and founded (717) the bishop- 
ric of Freisingen. Winfrid, the Saxon 
monk, "the apostle of Germany," was con- 
secrated (723) regionary bishop of Germany 
by the name of Boniface, with general 
jurisdiction over all whom he might win 
from paganism ; and it was not until 732 
that he became archbishop, entrusted with 
the task of founding bishoprics in Ger- 
many ; and not until the year 745 that he 



86 Bishops Without a Diocese 

was able to find a city where he could place 
his " metropolitical chair." 

When the pope consecrated Methodius 
metropolitan of Moravia (868), he also 
raised his brother Cyril to the episcopal 
office, but without assigning him a see ; and 
before a jurisdiction could be secured for 
him, this " apostle of the Slavs " had been 
translated to Paradise. 

In 1171 Fulco, a monk, was consecrated 
bishop of Finland and Esthnia, but seems 
to have selected for himself another field of 
labor. ^ 

^ For other regionary bishops, see Chap. XIX. The ma- 
jority of missionary bishops were little more than episcopi 
regionarli. 



XI 

BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 
IV.— TITULAR BISHOPS 



CHAPTEE XI 

BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 

IV. — TITULAB BISHOPS 

Perhaps the earliest mention of bishops 
ordained to no see occurs in the ecclesias- 
tical history of Sozomen, who informs us 
(B. VI. c. 34), that some time during the 
ivth century Lazarus, Barses, and Eulo- 
gius were elevated to the episcopate '^ on 
account of their purity of life." The title 
was an honorary one altogether, and in the 
nature of a degree. About the year 780, 
Etherius figures as titular bishop of Osma, 
a district then under Saracen rule. One 
hundred years later, one of the " apostles of 
the Slavs," Cyril, the brother of Methodius, 
was consecrated bishop by the pope, but 
not assigned to any see, and he died before 
any could be found for him. In the year 
957, after the revolt of England north of 



90 Bishops Without a Diocese 

the Thames, the Witan decreed that Dun- 
stan (who had been banished from the king- 
dom by iEthelgif u, the mother of the queen 
of the south, on account of his fearless re- 
buke of the king's unlawful relations with 
her daughter) should receive the episco- 
pal dignity, and, though there was no see 
vacant, he was immediately consecrated 
bishop. The Crusades founded a number 
of sees in the East, '^ the occupants of which 
retained their titles even after their ex- 
pulsion, and found employment as as- 
sistants of Western prelates (suffragan 
bishops). This gave rise to the institution 
of Episcopi in partibus (sc. injideliiim) , 
which has continued ever since, in testi- 
mony of the inalienable rights of the 
Church." 

In the year 1382, one William Bottles- 
ham, who was known by the official title of 
Episcopus Navatensis, was summoned to 
the Convocation House, London, to take 
counsel with the Church authorities against 
the Wicklivites. Sixty years previously 
(1311), the council of Ravenna had re- 
ferred to these titular bishops as ignoti 
et vagabondi episcopi. In 1531, a Bishop of 



Titular Bishops 91 

Sidon figured extensively in England. 
Robert Wa-uchope, who introduced the Jes- 
uits into Ireland (1541), was titular bish- 
op of Armagh, and, two years later, was 
appointed archbishop by the pope. About 
the same time, one Robert King, Episco- 
pus Boannensis, a see in the province of 
the archbishopric of Athens, was translat- 
ed from his imaginary diocese and made 
bishop of Oxford. Cranmer invited a clerk, 
known as Ejnscopus Ilippolitanum, to assist 
him in conferring orders. 

After the accession of Elizabeth, a titular 
Irish bishop of Killaloe, headed an army 
of Italian brigands collected for the in- 
vasion of Ireland ; and a few years later, 
one Maceogan, a titular bishop, f eU fighting 
against the royal forces. In the time of 
Charles I., as quaint old Fuller tells us, one 
Richard Smith, titular bishop of Chalcedon, 
bishoped it over the Roman Catholics, and 
was opposed by one Nicholas Smith, who 
averred that a bishop over the English 
Catholics was useless in times of persecu- 
tion, and that he was burdensome to the 
Church, and that this bishop of Chalcedon 



92 Bishops Without a Diocese 

was uncanonical, because he was only a 
bishop ad bene placitum papce, " at the plea- 
sure of the pope," and not for life, and that 
he was simply a delegate and not an ordi- 
nary. And Mozeley, in his Beminisceiices, 
has an amusing story of how Dr. Morris, 
" Bishop of Troy," for many years one of 
the best known names in London, was called 
to order one day, after sermon, in the vestry, 
by Frederick Faber, and informed that his 
see really lay in Magna Greecia, and not, as 
he had hinted in his eloquent discourse, in 
Asia Minor, in the Troas/ 

Titular bishops were not unknown among 
the Presbyterians of Scotland, not even 
after the adoption of the Presbyterian form 
of government by Parliament. They were 
unconsecrated " superintendents," but they 
went by the name of bishops ; and, after the 
accession of James I., three of them (1610) 
were actually elevated to the episcopate by 
prelates of the Anglican Church. In 1705, 
two bishops (Sage and FuUarton), without 
diocesan jurisdiction, were privately con- 

^See Chapter V. for account of ** Bishop of Babylon" 
(1724-1739). 



Titular Bishops 93 

secrated at Edinburgh ; and, four j^ears 
later, the same dignity was conferred on 
Falconer and Christie in Dundee.^ 

1 Twenty-two archbishops in partibus injidelmm and 
ninety-eight bishops in partibus^ were present at the Vati- 
can Council, 1870. 

The bishop of Sodor and Man is (titular), bishop of the 
Hebrides and the Isle of Man. 



XII 

BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 

v.— SUFFEAGAN BISHOPS 



Not the bishops of subordinate cities, or suffragans to 
the metropolitan (as London, Rochester, Winchester, etc., 
to Canterbury), but " district bishops," or " assistants " to 
the diocesan, at his pleasure and during his lifetime only. 



CHAPTEE XII 
BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 

V. — SUFFEAGAN BISHOPS 

Eegionary or titular bishops, the prac- 
tical successors of the chorepiscopi, were 
among the first to do duty as suffragan 
bishops, and, after the failure of the Cru- 
sades, Western Europe had no lack of 
episcopi vacanteSy only too eager to share 
the duties and dignity of diocesans. 

As early as 1332 we read of one Peter 
Corbariensis as suffragan of several sees 
in the province of Canterbury. Mention is 
also made of a John Hatton who, under 
the title Episcopus Negropont, was conse- 
crated a suffragan to the archbishop of 
York. 

In the twenty-sixth year of the reign of 
Henry VIII., at the instigation of Cran- 
mer, to effect an increase in the number 
7 



98 Bishops Without a Diocese 

of bishops without multiplying the num- 
ber of sees, an act of Parliament restored 
the primitive system of chorejoiscopi, but 
under the name of suffragans, who yet 
were not compelled to take title from any 
locality in the diocese in which they 
served. Under this act suffragans were 
elected for twenty-six sees, among whom, 
according to Eouth and Strype, were the 
following : 

Underwood, consecrated (1531) suffragan 
of Norwich. This is he who degraded 
Bilney before his martyrdom ; 

Mannyng, on nomination to the king by 
the bishop of Norwich, consecrated (1535), 
by the archbishop, suffragan of Gipswich ; 

Salisbury, the prior of S. Faith's (in the 
diocese), consecrated (1535), on the nomi- 
nation of the same bishop of Norwich, 
suffragan of Thetf ord ; 

John Bird, provincial of the order of 
the Friars Carmelites of the city of Lon- 
don, consecrated (1537) suffragan of Pen- 
rith (diocese of Llandaff ) ; 

Lewis Thomas, sometime abbot of the 
monastery of Kynmer, consecrated (1537) 
suffragan of Salop ; 



Suffragan Bishops 99 

Thomas Morley, sometime abbot in 
Sarum diocese, consecrated (1537) suffra- 
gan of Marlborough ; 

Richard Yngworth, prior of the priory 
of Langley Regis, consecrated (1537) suf- 
fragan of Dover, for the relief of the arch- 
bishop, ''to confirm children, to bless 
altars, chalices, vestments and other orna- 
ments of the church; to suspend places 
and churches, and to renovate them; to 
consecrate churches and altars new set up ; 
to confer all the lesser orders, to conse- 
crate holy oil of chrism and holy unction ; 
and to perform all other things belonging 
to the office of a bishop ; " 

John Hodgkin, professor of divinity, 
consecrated (1537) suffragan of Bedford. 
This prelate assisted later in the consecra- 
tion of Archbishop Parker ; 

Barnes (1566), suffragan of Nottingham; 
and Rogers (1569), suffragan of Dover. 

The towns appointed for suffragans' sees 
under this act were, in addition to those 
already mentioned — Colchester, Guilford, 
Southampton, Taunton, Shaftesbury, Mal- 
ton, Leicester, Gloucester, Shrewsbury, 
Bristol, Bridgewater, Grantham, Hull, 



100 Bishops Without a Diocese 

Huntingdon, Cambridge, Berwick, St. 
Germain in Cornwall, and the ^' Isle of 
Wight." 

Shaxton, who resigned the see of Salis- 
bury (1539), on the passage of ''The Six 
Articles," figures later (1555) as suffragan 
to the bishop of Ely, and condemning 
William Wolsey and Robert Pigot to be 
burnt. One of Cranmer's suffragans, a 
man by the name of Thornton, of Dover, 
gave him no end of trouble in the reign 
of Mary, setting up the mass at Canter- 
bury and hounding the anti-Roman party 
to the death. 

By 1 Elizabeth, the act for suffragan 
bishops, repealed in the days of Philip 
and Mary, was revived (1559), but the of- 
fice came to an end in Sterne, who (1606) 
was consecrated suffragan of Colchester.^ 

Among the non-juring bishops were two 
that were styled the suffragans of Thetford 
and Ipswich. 

^ The office was revived in England, in 1870, in the con- 
secration of Archdeacon Mackenzie as suffragan of Not- 
tingham (diocese of London). Canterbury, too, nomi- 
nated Archdeacon Parry to be suffragan of Dover. 



XIII 

BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 

VL— MONASTERY BISHOPS 



The monastery was the centre of the ancient Celtic 
Church of Ireland, and the Church grew by the multipli- 
cation of monasteries. There all authority was lodged ; 
thence missionaries set out ; thither students and ecclesi- 
astics turned their steps. Bishops there were, but they 
were not supreme ; they were under orders and without 
jurisdiction. 

The diocese was not introduced until the Synod of Rath- 
breasil, 1118, when the country was divided into twenty- 
four dioceses, with two archbishoprics. 



CHAPTEE XIII 
BISHOPS WITHOUT A DIOCESE 

VI. — MONASTERY BISHOPS 

The earliest monastery bishop of whom 
there is any clear trace was the appointee 
of Brigit, one of S. Patrick's converts, 
and the founder, at Kildare {circ. 500), of 
a monastic institution for men and women. 
The bishop had been a hermit, but, en- 
gaged to '' govern the church with her in 
episcopal dignity," and engaged hy her, he 
was elevated to the episcopate, by the 
apostle of Ireland or some other prelate, 
and from that date served under her, con- 
ferring orders and consecrating churches, 
as she commanded. Brigit v^'-as somewhat 
of a Puritan, as well as a local pope, for 
when this Bishop Condlaed, her own pri- 
vate bishop, took advantage of a trip to 
Brittany to bring back episcopal vest- 



104 Bishops Without a Diocese 

ments of a foreign pattern, she made them 
into clothes for the poor. A little later, 
when he would visit Rome, she refused 
her consent, and, going nevertheless, he 
had not got off the island before he was 
attacked and devoured by avenging and 
angry wolves. 

Kieran, who died 560, was the founder, 
as well as the bishop, of a monastery in 
the vicinity of Saigir, as it came to be 
called later, around which a city grew up, 
and whence he issued with his monks on 
his evangelistic tours among the heathen 
in Ossory, of which he is said to have be- 
come the first bishop. 

Columba (or Colum-cille, as he was 
baptized), the apostle of Caledonia (&. 
521), educated at the monastic school of 
Clonard, being invited by Finnian, its 
founder and its abbot, to become its 
bishop, went for consecration to Etchen, 
bishop of the neighboring monastery of 
Clonfad, who chanced to be ploughing at 
the moment of his arrival, and, some one 
blundering, priest's orders only were con- 
ferred ; and Columba would no more, but 
devoted his energies thenceforth to found- 



Monastery Bishops 105 

ing monasteries and churches in every 
part of Ireland. 

It was as abbot and bishop of his own 
monastery of Llan-Elwyn, in Wales, that 
Kentigern founded the see to which he 
gave the name of S. Asaph, and as a mon- 
astery bishop he went back (560) to Glas- 
gow, from whose cells his monks penetrat- 
ed even to the Orkney Isles, and Strath- 
clyde and Albyn were evangelized. 

Disibod was a monastery bishop in Ire- 
land, and leaving it (620), grieved and 
wearied at the Laodiceanism of the age, 
after ten years of wandering on the Conti- 
nent he settled in the diocese of Metz, 
where he founded a monastic community 
and was recognized as abbot-bishop, but 
with no jurisdiction beyond the limits of 
his own establishment. 

Aidan, going out from lona about the 
same time, to attempt the reconversion of 
Northumbria, established his head-quar- 
ters on a little island off the coast, and, 
reproducing there the monastic foundations 
of Ireland, as abbot-bishop of Lindisfarne, 
inspired and guided the extension of the 
Church through all the north of England. 



106 Bishops Without a Diocese 

Thence too, Finan, his successor, evange- 
lized Mercia and the East Saxons ; and 
thence Colman, next in order of time, went 
forth to withstand the Eomish WiKrid 
(664) at the synod of Whitby, holden in 
the monastery of Streanashalch. After the 
founder of this monastic bishopric, no one 
of his successors is more honored and re- 
vered than Cuthbert, the sixth to exercise 
episcopal supervision over Lindisfarne 
and its dependencies, to whom (683) the 
Northumbrian King (Egfrith) made large 
grants of land, and donated even the town 
of Carlisle. In the north lay the monas- 
tic bishopric of Abercorn, and its bishop, 
Trumwine, was one of those who accom- 
panied the court to the haunted rock of 
Fame, in the centre of the Archipelago, 
to pray the holy Cuthbert to undertake the 
responsibilities of the episcopate. 

As a result of the labors of S. Patrick, 
who is said, in The Tripartite Life^ to have 
consecrated three himdred bishops, or, ac- 
cording to the Annals of the Kingdom of 
Ireland by the Four Masters, to have raised 
seven hundred to the episcopate, Ireland 
swarmed with bishops without sees. Some 



Monastery Bishops 107 

of them drifted over to the Continent, 
where they did episcopal duty for indolent 
or overworked diocesans ; and these are 
they who, as Scoti or episcopi vagi, were 
condemned by councils. Some founded 
monasteries in unclaimed districts of the 
country, and originated a jurisdiction. 
And some were "picked up," or "hired" 
by abbots, who were not always (in Colum- 
bian foundations never) bishops, to perform 
episcopal functions for their monasteries ; 
and these had no independent authority or 
jurisdiction, and were liable to discipline, 
and strictly subject to the orders of their 
spiritual chief. 

The case of Vergil, " the Geometer," il- 
lustrates more than one of these tendencies. 
An Irishman of genius and great erudition, 
he is induced, on his way to the 'S.olj Land 
from Ireland (745), to become the abbot of 
S. Peter's at Salzburgh, and at once sets 
about, Irish fashion, to secure a bishop to 
do a bishop's work for his community. A 
little later (747) he is appointed bishop of 
Salzburgh, and for two years, apparently 
for fear of being considered an intruder, 
conceals his orders, continues to be the 



108 Bishops Without a Diocese 

presbyter-abbot, and allows his private 
bishop to attend to all episcopal duties. 
Then he declares himself, as it were ; and 
the monastery bishop is promoted (!) to be 
abbot of Chiemsee. 

The synod which met at Magh Lene to 
consider the Easter problem was chiefly a 
council of abbots ^ ; abbots were the princi- 

1 It is evident that the Celtic Church of Ireland (Scot- 
land) did not require the presence of more than one bish- 
op at a consecration ; that the bishop was not the head 
of that Church ; that, as the successors of '^the apostle of 
Ireland" were either abbots or bishops, the question of 
apostolical succession in the Irish Church is not a mooted 
one ; and that, as bishops only were deemed competent to 
confer orders or consecrate churches, and, for that reason, 
were considered indispensable to every well-ordered mon- 
astery, the Presbyterian theory of church government is 
not illustrated by ancient Celtic usage. 

*' Associated bishops," in groups of seven (and more 
than one hundred such groups have been enumerated) were 
a feature of the Celtic Church. 

*' Tribal bishops" was another institution peculiar to 
the ancient Irish Church. Each tribe was constituted on 
a religious footing, and each tribe seems to have had its 
bishop, but always under the jurisdiction of the abbot, 
the spiritual chief of the Church. A detailed account of 
the tribal constitution of the Church may be found in The 
Tripartite Life of S. Patrick. 

Sometimes, too, men were elevated to the episcopal dig- 
nity in token of their services or learning. But this was 
not peculiar to the Irish Church. The ecclesiastical his- 
torian, Sozomen, makes mention (B. vi. c. xxxiv. ) of two 



Monastery Bishops 109 

pal authorities at the synod of Whitefield, 
where the same subject was discussed ; and 
that of 695, convened, as usual, by the ab- 
bot of Armagh (the seat of S. Patrick), 
primus inter pares, was little more than a 
gathering of the heads of monasteries. 

presbyters, Barses and Eulogius, who were ordained bish- 
ops on account of their purity of life, adding, ''the title 
was merely an honorary one ; " and that was before the 
date of the Nicene Council. 



XIV 
EPISCOPAL ANTECEDENTS 



CHAPTEE XIV 

EPISCOPAL ANTECEDENTS 

Callixtus, bishop of Rome (217), was a 
liberated slave. Cyprian, bishop of Car- 
thage, and a martyr under Valerian (258), 
had been a heathen rhetorician. 

Martin, bishop of Tours (316-397), was 
the soldier who divided his cloak with 
his sword and clad a beggar with the 
half of it one winter's night, and was 
rewarded by a vision of the Saviour the 
next night, arrayed in the expropriated half, 
and summoning him to an apostolic life. 
Spyridion, bishop of the Cypriots, one of 
the immortal " 318 " at the Nicene Coun- 
cil, was a shepherd and continued to tend 
his bleating flock even after his elevation 
to the episcopate. Basil, made bishop of 
Ancyra (336), was a learned physician. 
*' The infamous George of Cappadocia," 
supposed by Gibbon to be the original of 
S. George of England, made Arian bishop 
of Alexandria on the third exile of Athan- 
8 



114 Episcopal Antecedents 

asius (356), was born in a fuller's shop at 
Epipliania, in Cilicia, and became a book 
collector and a fraudulent contractor of 
Constantinople. Abraames, forced to ac- 
cept the bishopric of Carrse, played the 
pedlar on his missionary journeys in the 
Chalcidian desert, in Syria. Eunomius, 
Arian bishop of Cyzicus (360-64), a noted 
controversialist and famed for the purity 
of his life, was the grandson of a slave, the 
son of a small farmer, and supported him- 
self as a tailor, making clothes and girdles. 
Marathonius, bishop of Nicomedia (356), 
had been a paymaster in the Roman army. 
Amphilochus (374) had been an advocate. 
Ambrose had been governor of Milan. 
Nectarius was praetor of Constantinople at 
the time of his election to the archbishop- 
ric of that city. Gregory of Nyssa (372- 
395) had been a rhetorician. Heliodorus, 
bishop of Altinum (380), had carried arms. 
Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea {d. 
379), had been an advocate and rhetorician. 
Petilianus, an eminent Donatist bishop and 
one of Augustine's antagonists, had been 
a lawyer. Chrysostom practised as an ad- 
vocate before his baptism. Augustine of 



Episcopal Antecedents 115 

Hippo had been a rhetorician. Philogo- 
nius had been a judge. 

Synesius, elected (410) to the see of 
Ptolemais, in Egypt, was an agricultur- 
ist and pagan philosopher. Germanus, 
bishop of Auxerre, was hereditary gov- 
ernor of Auxerre and a noted sportsman 
(418). Thalassius, bishop of Csesarea in 
Cappadocia (439), had been governor of 
lUyricum and a senator. Sidonius ApoUi- 
naris, bishop of Clermont (472), was {Gains 
Sollius Modestus) a Latin author and a poet 
of great repute. Irenseus, bishop of Tyre 
in this century, a correspondent of "the 
blessed Theodoret" (bishop of Cyprus), 
was a count of the empire. Peter, the 
intruding bishop of Antioch (471-78), was 
by occupation a fuller of cloth. Ibas, 
bishop of Edessa {d. 470), had been a 
teacher. Glycerins, bishop of Salona, had 
been (471) emperor of Home. 

Paulus, bishop of Meriden, was a doc- 
tor of medicine when chosen (530) bishop. 
John, surnamed The Faster, thirty-third 
bishop of Constantinople (582-595), me- 
tropolitan and patriarch, was the son of 
an artisan, and was himself a sculptor. 



116 Episcopal Antecedents 

Aetlierius, bishop of Lyons, had been a 
senator at the court of Guntram. Cumin 
the Tall, bishop of Clonfert, was " born in 
sin," cast out in infancy, rescued by the 
clergy, and denominated the man who had 
been saved in a basket {Cumin). 

Gregory the Great, bishop of Rome 
{d. 604), was an eminent jurist, had been 
distinguished as a senator, and promoted 
to the government of the city of Rome. 
Desiderius had been prime minister and 
treasurer to King Dagobert I. Eligius, 
the missionary bishop of Noyon (610), 
was a goldsmith by trade. Hubert, bishop 
of Liege {d, 727), the apostle of the Ar- 
dennes, had been a soldier. 

Maurus, archbishop of Mayence {d. 856), 
had given renown to the academy of 
Fulda as a teacher. Ignatius, patriarch 
of Constantinople in the same century, 
was a descendant of the imperial family. 
Dunulf, bishop of Winchester, was the 
herdsman in whose hovel Alfred the Great 
was sheltered for six months. 

Willigis, archbishop of Mayence, and 
primate of all Germany at the close of 
the xth century, was the son of a wheel- 



Episcopal Antecedents 117 

Wright, and, since liis day, a shield with 
a white cart-wheel has been the coat of 
arms of the city of Mayence. 

Spearhafoc, who was appointed to the 
bishopric of London (1050), was a gold- 
smith and engaged, at the time, in making 
a crown for the king. Peter Damiani, 
cardinal -bishop of Ostia {d. 1072), had 
been abandoned by his mother on his 
birth, and, as a lad, was treated by his 
married brother as a slave and sent into 
the fields to feed swine. 

Becket was the son of a trader, and the 
king's chancellor when compelled to ac- 
cept Canterbury. Longchamp, bishop of 
Ely (1189-1197), was of low origin, small 
and lame. 

Benedict VIII., bishop of Eome {d. 
1024), was a son of the count of Tusculum. 
Gregory VII. was the son of a black- 
smith. Benedict X. was the child of a 
notary. Adrian IV. {d, 1159), the only 
English pope, was abandoned by his fa- 
ther at an early age, entered France a pau- 
per, and engaged as a servant in a convent. 
Celestine V. {d. 1296) was a simple 
farmer's son. Urban IV. had a carpenter 



118 Episcopal Antecedents 

for a father. John XXII. {d. 1334) was 
a cobbler's son. Benedict XII. (d 1392) 
was a baker's lad. Alexander V. {d. 
1410) was a charity child and begged his 
bread from door to door. Paul IV., of 
Tridentine fame, was the son of a Mila- 
nese tax-gatherer, and had been left to 
shift for himself from childhood. Sixtus 
V. {d, 1590), the son of a laundress, the 
brother of a washerwoman, supported 
himself in his youth as a swineherd. 
Sixtus VI. was born of a fisherman. 

Walter Reynolds, bishop of Worcester 
(1313), was the son of a baker. William 
of Wykeham had been the king's architect. 
The maternal grandfather of Carlo Bor- 
romeo was a poor tax-collector, and his 
uncle the adventurer Giangiacomo, who 
was reputed to have put 5,000 men to 
death in one way or another. Hugh La- 
timer {d. 1555), bishop of Worcester, 
was the son of a Leicestershire yeoman. 
William Laud, archbishop {d. 1645), was 
the son of a clothier. Dr. Coldv/ell, 
bishop of Salisbury, had been a " doctor 
of physic." George Stone, archbishop of 
Dublin (d 1764), was governor of Ireland. 



XV 
MAETIAL PRELATES 



CHAPTEE XV 
MAKTIAL PEELATES 

On the conclusion of the Easter-tide 
festivities of the year 430, the Gallican 
bishops of Anxerre and Troyes, then on a 
mission to Britain, headed the forces of 
the South against the Picts and Scots, and 
gained the bloodless victory known as Tlie 
Alleluia. One hundred years later Conon, 
the bishop of Apamea, in the Isaurian rebel- 
lion, in the reign of Anastasius, abandoned 
his see, exchanged his episcopal vestments 
for the garments of the soldier, led the 
rebels, and was killed in a siege the next 
year. Leger, of princely race, after ten 
years' service in the bishopric of Autun, 
put himself at the head of the Burgundian 
faction (670), defeated his rival in a bloody 
contest, and assumed the title of mayor of 
the palace. 

Geroldus, bishop of Mentz, was killed in 
battle against the Saxons (743), in one of 



122 Martial Prelates 

Carloman's campaigns. The following year \ 
his son and successor, Gewilieb, accompa- ' 
nied Carloman on another of his campaigns 
against the Saxons, and challenged the slay- 
er of his father to single combat. They 
met in the centre of the stream, and the 
Saxon fell, pierced by the bishop's sword. 

In a pitched battle (833) between the 
Danes and the Bretwalda, Egbert, two 
bishops, Herefrid, of Worcester, and Wil- 
bert, of Sherborne, were killed on the jBeld. 
Ealhstan, bishop of Sherborne, a man of 
great wealth and resources, equipped an 
army at his own expense (845), and, in con- 
junction with the ealdermen of Somerset 
and Dorset, gained a notable victory over 
the Danes at the mouth of the Parret; 
and Wessex dwelt in safety for twenty 
years thereafter. 

Cormac MacOuillenan, bishop, ancho- 
rite, scribe, scholar, and one of the redac- 
tors of the Saltair (Psalter) of Cashel, a 
provincial register of kings and revenues, 
etc., was killed in a battle (903) he was 
compelled to fight, as king of Cashel, 
against the united forces of Ireland, Lein- 
ster and Oonnaught. 



Martial Prelates 123 

When Archbishop ^Ifric was dead 
(1005), it was found that he had collected a 
number of ships with their equipments, one 
of which, together with armor for sixty men, 
he bequeathed to the king, and one to the 
people of Kent, and a third to the Wilt- 
shire folk. Wulfstan, the only English 
prelate in the island at the close of the 
Norman Conqueror's reign, had the repu- 
tation of being a brave soldier as well as a 
good bishop, and William was too wise to 
insist on his deposition on a charge he had 
trumped up ; and Worcester retained its 
bishop. 

On being elevated to the bishopric of 
Man (1134), Wymund invaded Scotland as 
Malcom MacHeth, supported by the Nor- 
man king of the Isles, and, after two or 
three years' fighting, was taken prisoner by 
David, confined in a castle, and was finally 
made Earl of Eoss. In " The Battle of the 
Standard" (1137) the Scots, under David, 
were completely routed by the English of 
the North, commanded by Eaoul, the 
bishop of Durham, and inspired by the 
vehement eloquence of the aged archbishop 
of York ; while the consecrated banners of 



124 Martial Prelates 

the three great northern saints hung sus- 
pended from a pole in a four-wheeled car 
on which the brave prelate stood. 

Axel, bishop of Eoeskilde (1158) and 
archbishop of Lund and primate of Scan- 
dinavia (1178), put down the Wendish 
pirates infesting the Baltic, and, following 
them up to their island home of Eiigen, 
forced them to receive Christianity. He 
also overcame the Pomeranian prince, Bo- 
gislas, and made him do homage to the 
Danish monarch. 

Walter Hubert, bishop of Salisbury, 
accompanied Richard to Acre, where he 
distinguished himself as a warrior, a com- 
mander, and a pastor; and some years la- 
ter, while archbishop of Canterbury (1193- 
1205), organized an expedition against the 
"Welsh, for which he was reprimanded by 
the pope. Fifty years later Bishop Chris- 
tianus was thought to be disqualified be- 
cause of his un warlike disposition, and was 
accordingly deposed from the episcopate. 

Anthony Beck, bishop of Durham, com- 
manded a division of the English army at 
the battle of Falkirk (July 22, 1298), when 
the Scottish army was virtually annihi- 



Martial Prelates 125 

lated. William Sinclair, bishop of Dun- 
keld (1317)j seeing the sheriff with five 
hundred Scottish horse retreating precipi- 
tately before the fleet of Edward II., at tLo 
Frith of Forth, put himself in the road of the 
fugitives and cried, " Out on you for false 
knights, whose spurs should be knocked 
from your heels ! Who loves Scotland 
follow me ! " In the desperate charge 
that followed the English were driven to 
their ships, and thenceforth Sinclair was 
known as '' The King's Bishop," because of 
Bruce's declaration that that man should 
be his bishop. On September 20, 1319, 
William of Melton, archbishop of York, 
headed a large force of clerks against the 
Scots, when three hundred men in holy or- 
ders were slain, and the bishop of Ely nar- 
rowly escaped. William de Ayremyn, after- 
ward bishop of Norwich, was among the 
prisoners taken at "The White Battle," 
which resulted in the rout of the archbish- 
op's army. At the "Battle of Nevill's 
Cross" (October 18, 1345), David of Scot- 
land, who had led a large army into the 
bishopric of Durham, was defeated with 
great slaughter by William Zouche, arch- 



126 Martial Prelates 

bishop of York, who led one of the divi- 
sions of the English forces, in which 
knights and men-at-arms and clerks were 
indiscriminately mingled. 

Over on the Continent tTie archbishop of 
Mainz entered the council of Constance 
(1414), at which Huss was condemned, 
** in military attire, with helmet, cuirass, 
and iron boots." In the same century 
Kainieri, bishop of Vercelli, led the war 
against Dolcino and his followers. 

Toward the close of the xvith cen- 
tury Ireland was invaded by a force of 
Italian robbers, under the command of a 
titular Roman bishop. A few years later 
another prelate, who assumed the title of 
archbishop of Armagh, instigated the Irish 
to revolt, and fell in battle with the royal 
troops. On the occasion of the next insur- 
rection, after the accession of the queen, 
Maceogan, another titular bishop of the 
Roman obedience, led a troop of horse 
against the sovereign, and, with sword in 
one hand and breviary and beads in the 
other, was killed on the field. 

Among those left on the field of Flodden 
(September 9, 1513) were the archbishop 



Martial Prelates 127 

of S. Andrews, two bishops, and two ab- 
bots. 

It was the bishop of Derry, George 
Walker, who led the men of Londonderry 
in the campaign of 1690, and he fell while 
resisting the Irish cavalry at the battle of 
the Boyne. 



XVI 

POLITICIANS AND STATESMEN 



CHAPTEE XVI 

POLITICIANS AND STATESMEN 

Arnulf, the saintly bishop of Metz, who 
became Dagobert's political adviser in the 
year 621, ranks among the earliest pre- 
lates to undertake the affairs of state. 
Leger, the ambitious incumbent of the 
Burgundian bishopric of Autun, having 
defeated his political rival (670), exercised 
thenceforth the functions of the mayor of 
the palace. Chunibert, the eleventh arch- 
bishop of Cologne, was ^' prime minister " 
to Dagobert, to Sigebert II., and to Childe- 
ric. 

Grodegang, bishop of Metz, was keeper 
of the seal under Charles Martel. Hubert, 
bishop of Liege {d. 727), was invested 
by Charles with the territorial jurisdiction 
of that city, and in a short time had sur- 
rounded it with walls, established laws for 



132 Politicians and Statesmen 

its government, fixed the weights and 
measures for its citizens, and appointed 
magistrates and a grand major to adminis- 
ter justice in the province. 

Ansgar, ** the Apostle of the North" {d. 
865), served as the ambassador of the Ger- 
man king at the court of Denmark. Solo- 
mon III., bishop of Constance (891-920), 
was baron of Eamschwag and privy coun- 
cillor to five successive kings. On the 
death of King Arnulf (899), Hatto I., arch- 
bishop of Mayence, became guardian of 
the infant Louis and regent of the realm, 
and, later on, a traitor to the crown, 
Luitward, to whom Notker Balbulus ded- 
icated his Liher Sequentiarum^ was both 
bishop of Vercelli and chancellor to 
Charles the Fat. 

In the year 953 the emperor appointed 
his brother Bruno to the archiepiscopal 
throne of Cologne, and invested him and 
his successors with supreme judicial rights 
over the city. Similar jurisdiction was 
ceded (966) to the bishop of Bremen; to 
the archbishop of Magdeburg, 968 ; to the 
bishop of Strasburg, 983; and to the 
bishop of Speyer, 989. Adelgag, bishop of 



Politicians and Statesmen 133 

Hamburg, who died 988, was chancellor of 
the realm under Otho the Great, Otho II., 
and Otho in. 

At the opening of the xiiith century 
the archbishops of Mayence were also 
arch-chancellors of the realm, and on them 
rested the responsibility of filling the 
throne when it fell vacant. 

Bishop-kings were not unusual in Ire- 
land in the ixth century. Among the 
most famous was one Phelim, both bishop 
and monarch of Cashel, who organized an 
expedition for the capture of Armagh, the 
primatial city, and, being in possession, at 
the cost of many outlying priests and 
bishops, '' quietly resumed his clerical of- 
fice, and preached every Simday for a 
whole year to the people of Armagh." 
Later in the same century, Cormac of 
Cashel, of the royal house of Munster, was 
called to the throne (896), after a long and 
arduous episcopate, and spent the remnant 
of his life in camp and battles, in one of 
which he died. 

The first prelate in England to figure as 
a magnate of the state was Jaenbert, arch- 
bishop of Canterbury (766-790), who seems 



134 Politicians and Statesmen 

to have coined money for use in the king- 
dom of Kent. 

A hundred years later the bishop of 
Durham held the rights and dignities of 
the king over The Bishopeic — the patri- 
mony of S. Cuthbert (Lindisfarne and 
lands adjacent, the village of Craik, the 
town of Carlisle, and the territory between 
the Tyne and the Tees), which (900-915) 
was enlarged by the purchase of "the 
ancient parish of Bedlington, north of the 
Tyne, with an area of thirty square miles ; " 
and within these metes and bounds the 
bishop held his own courts and appointed 
his own officers ; all writs ran in his own 
name ; he could pardon treasons, murders, 
and felonies, and offences were said to be 
committed against his peace ; and he had 
his own mint. In the year 1836, on the 
death of Bishop van Mildert, the palatine 
jurisdiction of Durham was made over to 
the crown. 

Henry I. (1100-1135) granted royal 
rights over the Isle of Man to the bishop 
of Ely, which thereby was erected into a 
county palatine. 

Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury, 



Politicians and Statesmen 135 

(960-988), stands perhaps at the head of 
the long line of ecclesiastical statesmen 
produced in England by the law of the 
survival of the fittest. One hundred years 
later, a bishop (Osbert of Exeter), the first 
prelate to hold the oJBfice, was made lord 
high chancellor and keeper of the seal, a 
post of little prominence before the advent 
of the Norman kings. 

Robert Bloet, bishop of Lincoln, held 
the office of justiciar during seven years 
of his episcopate (1100-1107), the first to 
bear the title as indicating a definite office. 
Eoger, bishop of Salisbury (1107), was 
both chancellor and justiciar, and the 
founder of that administrative system 
which ennobled the justiciar to act as '^ per- 
manent prime minister, as the representa- 
tive of the monarchy in all relations of 
state, as regent during the king's absence, 
as royal deputy even in his presence, as 
president of the judicial system which 
centred in the Curia Regis, and so presi- 
dent of the fiscal system which centred in 
the exchequer." On the accession of 
Henry of Anjou the archdeacon Becket 
was made chancellor (1154), but, shortly 



136 Politicians and Statesmen 

after his elevation to the archbishopric of 
Canterbury, he relinquished the office as 
incompatible with his obligations to the 
Church. All through the reign of Eich- 
ard Gceur de Lion the affairs of the king- 
dom were in the hands of prelates, Long- 
champ, bishop of Ely, ruling the land as 
justiciar on the departure of the king on 
his knight-errantry ; Walter de Coutances, 
archbishop of Rouen, superseding him in 
1191 ; and Hubert Walter (1193), arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, displacing him in 
turn ; while Richard, bishop of London, 
was treasurer, and Eustace, bishop of Ely, 
lord high chancellor. 

Of more than ordinary ability and learn- 
ing was the prelate (Robert Burnell, bishop 
of Bath and Wells) who held the office of 
chancellor under Edward I., at whose 
manor-house the statute De 3Iercatoribus 
was passed, and who for eighteen years 
(1275-1292) was virtually prime minister. 

Stratford, bishop of Winchester (1323) 
and archbishop of Canterbury (1333), 
held the great seal three different times. 
In the year 1340, Sir Robert Bourchier 
was appointed lord chancellor, the first 



Politicians and Statesmen 137 

layman to hold that office. Thirty-one 
years later William of Wykeham, bishop 
of Winchester, by way of answer to a pe- 
tition presented to the king by the anti- 
clerical party, resigned the chancellorship, 
and the bishop of Exeter the office of treas- 
urer ; when laymen were nominated for 
these places. 

But ecclesiastical statesmen had not yet 
gone out of fashion altogether, for John 
Stafford, archbishop of Canterbury in the 
next century, was appointed treasurer in 
1422, keeper of the privy seal in 1428, 
lord chancellor in 1432, and held the great 
seal till 1450. George Neville, bishop of 
Exeter, also received the great seal in 
1460, and, ten years later, when archbish- 
op of York, was appointed chancellor by 
Henry YI. Eobert Stillington, bishop of 
Bath and Wells {d. 1491), was twice en- 
trusted with the great seal. 

Archbishop Wolsey was lord chancellor, 
as everybody knows, from 1515 to 1529, 
when he was forced to relinquish the office 
under the Statute of Prcemunire. Next af- 
ter him to hold the great seal in conjunc- 
tion with the spiritualities of a diocese. 



138 Politicians and Statesmen 

was Goodrich, bishop of Ely, who suc- 
ceeded Sir Eichard Eich as lord chan- 
cellor (1551), and used his position to 
alter the royal succession in favor of Lady 
Jane Grey. On the accession of Mary, 
Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester, 
was made lord chancellor ; and on his 
death (1555) the great seal was entrusted to 
Nicholas Heath, archbishop of York, from 
whom it passed to a layman. In 1587 it 
was declined by Archbishop Whitgift. 

The last prelate to hold the great seal 
was John "Williams, bishop of Lincoln, who 
was made chancellor in 1621. 

From first to last the office of chancellor 
was held by one hundred and fifteen eccle- 
siastics. 

In the year 1635, after the lapse of two 
hundred years, during which time the of- 
fice was held by laymen only, William 
Juxom, bishop of London, was made lord 
high treasurer. 

The last ecclesiastic to hold political of- 
fice in England was John Eobinson, bishop 
of Bristol, who (1711) held the privy seal, 
and was appointed the next year English 
plenipotentiary, in conjunction with the 



Politicians and Statesmen 139 

Earl of Strafford, at the Congress of 
Utrecht, and the treaty bears his signa- 
ture. 

In Ireland, the learned bishop of Cork, 
Michael Boyle, was chancellor (1670), and 
after him no more prelates were appointed 
to the office. Hugh Boulter, who died 
1742, archbishop of Armagh, served thir- 
teen years as one of the local justices of 
Ireland. 

At the opening of the reign of Alex- 
ander III. (1249) we find one Gamelin, 
bishop of S. Andrews, chancellor of the 
realm. James Kennedy, bishop of S. An- 
drews {d, 1466), acted as governor of the 
kingdom during the earlier portion of the 
minority of James III. On the escape of 
James V. (1528) it was on the archbishop 
of Glasgow that the post of chancellor was 
conferred, the archbishop of S. Andrews 
being the royal adviser, and the bishop of 
Dunkeld the privy seal. On the death of 
the king (1542) Cardinal Beaton, arch- 
bishop of S. Andrews and primate of 
Scotland, appeared named in the royal 
will as guardian of the infant Mary and 
governor of the realm. 



140 Politicians and Statesmen 

Nearly one hundred years later, John 
Spottiswood, archbishop of S. Andrews, 
crowned Charles I. at Holyrood, and was 
(1635) made chancellor of Scotland. 



XVII 

'AAAOTPIOEHlSKOnOI 

(1 Peter, iv. 15) 



** A bishop ouglit not to leave his own parish (diocese) 

and leap to another, although the multitude should com- 
pel him, unless there be some good reason forcing him to 
do this ; . . . but this is not to be settled by himself, 
but by the judgment of many bishops and very great 
supplication." — Apost. Cano7is, iv. 

"Let not a bishop dare to ordain beyond his limits, 
in cities or places not subject to him." — Ap. Can. xxxv. 

"If any (bishop) shall dare surreptitiously to take and 
to lay hands in his own church on a man belonging to an- 
other, without the consent of his own proper bishop, let 
the ordination be void." — Nicene Council^ Can. xvi. 

" A bishop must not enter into another city which is not 
subject to him, nor into a district which does not belong 
to him, to ordain anyone. But if anyone dare to do this, 
the ordination shall be null, and he himself punished by 
the Synod." — Council Antioch (341), Can, xxii. Also 
Canon xiii. 



CHAPTEE XVII 

•AAAOTPIOEniSKOnOI 

The first episcopal intruder of whom 
anything is clearly known was Hippolytus, 
a presbyter, who, not favoring the views 
and practices of Callixtus, the bishop of 
Rome, headed a hostile minority and got 
himself elected as counter-bishop ; and for 
fifteen years (220-235) the Christian ele- 
ment in the city of the Csesars was divided 
in its allegiance to the chair of S. Peter, 
two independent and antagonistic bishops 
claiming ecclesiastical authority and juris- 
diction. Twenty years later there were 
two counter-bishops in the see of Carthage, 
the presbyters, dissatisfied with Cyprian's 
severe treatment of the lapsed, having 
selected Fortunatus as their chief. About 
the same time, Novatian, a presbyter, was 
elected by the advocates of "a pure 
Church " bishop of Rome, in opposition to 



144 Intruding Bishops 

Cornelius, already consecrated to that see, 
and was duly elevated to the episcopate 
by three bishops. 

In the year 355, Felix was intruded into 
the see of Kome by the Emperor Constan- 
tius, after the banishment of Liberius, 
and supported even after his return. In 
the year 366, Ursinus, a deacon, was in- 
truded into the same see in opposition to 
Damasus, already in possession. In the 
year 537 the intriguing Vigilius was made 
bishop of Rome, and Silverius, the occu- 
pant of the see, exiled to the island of Pal- 
maria, where he died of hunger one year 
later. One hundred and twenty years after 
that Eugenius I. was declared pope, in 
place of Martin I., who, at the First Lateran 
Council, held at Rome (649), had offend- 
ed the emperor by his stern condemnation 
of the imperial conception of the Person 
of Christ, and had been declared deposed 
therefor. Eugenius loaded him with 
chains, sent him to Constantinople, where 
he was declared guilty of treason, and, 
banished to Cherson, he died (655) six 
months later from starvation. 

Into the see of Alexandria, Athanasius 



Intruding Bishops 145 

still living, his enemies intruded, during 
the period of his second exile (340-346), 
one Gregory, who (345) was killed by the 
Alexandrians themselves. In February, 
346, Athanasius returned and resumed the 
episcopal chair. Condemned to death (Jan- 
uary, 356) by the Emperor Constantius, he 
fled from the soldiery, and George, another 
wolf, was consecrated to the see. Decem- 
ber 24, 361, the pagans of the city, revived 
by the accession of Julian, rose against 
this brutal "antipope*' and kicked him to 
death. February 22, 362, Athanasius reap- 
peared and again took the reins, and the 
Arians, to force him out of the field once 
more, if possible, elected Lucius, who was 
escorted into the city by a deacon (de- 
graded by the council of Nicaea) and one 
Magnus, the treasurer, ^' notorious for every 
kind of impiety, and a vast body of troops." 
December, 362, by the order of Julian, 
angered at the baptism of some pagan 
ladies, Athanasius was (Condemned to exile 
and death, but, outwitting the men com- 
missioned to execute the order, he left the 
city, returned, concealed himself, and then 
went to Memphis, where he remained till 
10 



146 Intruding Bishops 

the death of the emperor, June 26, 363. 
Athanasius was recalled and reinstated, 
was present at a synod of bishops (363) 
gathered from Egypt to the Thebaid and 
Libya, and died ten years later, in his own 
home, having sat on the episcopal throne 
of Alexandria some forty-six years, and 
ten times an exile. 

Meletius, the bishop of Lycopolis {circ, 
307), who had a way of intruding into 
other dioceses, and ordaining and excom- 
municating there whom he would, one 
day received a letter from four Egyptian 
bishops incarcerated during the Diocletian 
persecution, calling him to account for his 
unauthorized acts within their several ju- 
risdictions. They quoted against him the 
apostolical canon, limiting a bishop to his 
own parish (diocese), and the reasons why 
none should be ordained without due ex- 
amination. If anyone is curious as to the 
names of these bishops, they are given 
as Hesychius, Pachomius, Theodoras, and 
Phileas, and their letter of protest is dated 
from the prison. 

About the middle of this century, Cyril 
being a second time deposed, Herrenius 



Intruding Bishops 147 

was intruded into the see of Jerusalem, 
and, on the accession of the Emperor 
Theodosius, Cyril was again invested with 
the presidency of the Church there. In 
the year 374, on the deposition of Euse- 
bius by the Arian Emperor Valens, Euno- 
mius was intruded into the see of Samo- 
sata. As no one would bathe with him in 
the public baths, or visit him, or exchange 
a word with him, as he officiated in an 
empty church and communicated almost 
alone, he found the episcopate a more 
lonely height than is generally supposed, 
and it was not long before the bishopric 
was again vacant and at the disposal of 
the Church. The following year Ecdicius 
was intruded into the see of Parnassus, in 
Cappadocia Tertia, in the place of Hypsi- 
nus, the reigning bishop, and it was brought 
about by Demosthenes, the cliefoi the kitch- 
en of the Emperor Valens, and vicar of 
Pontus, who considered himself competent 
to decide the deepest theological questions, 
and had convened the synod of Ancyra (375) 
of semi-Arians to secure the deposition of 
Bishop Hypsinus and the election of his 
candidate, who was their spokesman. 



148 Intruding Bishops 

At the opening of the vth century there 
died a bishop who was a great offender 
against the Yiiith and XYith canons of 
the Nicene Council, Epiphanius, bishop of 
Cyprus. Visiting Jerusalem in the Lent 
of 394, he contrived to seize Paulinianus, 
the brother of Jerome, at Eleutheropolis, 
a place outside the diocese of Jerusalem, 
and ordained him priest for the monastery 
at Bethlehem, thus empowering him to 
minister in the diocese of another bishop ; 
and against this usurpation of jurisdic- 
tion and authority the prelate of Jerusalem 
indignantly complained. Going, in the 
year 403, on a mission to Constantinople, 
he disembarked at 8. John's church, sev- 
en miles distant from the city, and there 
ordained a deacon without the consent 
or knowledge of the bishop of the see. 
Chrysostom resented the intrusion, as a 
matter of course, and, taking him to task, 
just as he was making ready to return to 
Cyprus, admonished him in these words : 
" You have done many things contrary to 
the canons, Epiphanius ; you have or- 
dained in churches under my jurisdiction ; 
you have ministered in them unauthorized 



Intruding Bishops 149 

by me. Beware lest you stir up a tumult 
and endanger yourself." Epiphanius did 
not live to reach home. He died on the 
voyage. 

The next year Chrysostom was violently 
expelled from Constantinople, and one 
Arcacius was intruded into the archbish- 
opric, a position he had voluntarily sworn 
he would never accept. The whole West- 
ern Church refused to acknowledge him, 
and the banished prelate denounced him 
as '' a spiritual adulterer." 

Hilary of Aries, too, did not hesitate to 
extend the limits of his diocese on occa- 
sion. Once he convened a synod of bish- 
ops to try a brother bishop, and succeeded 
in securing his deposition, although Leo 
the Great speedily restored him. A little 
later he consecrated a bishop to take the 
place of the prelate Projectus, who had 
been a long while ill and was not even lo- 
cated in his province. And this he did 
without asking the votes of the citizens or 
the clergy. 

In 451 the council of Chalcedon re- 
stored Bassianus to the see from which 
he had been ousted by one Stephen, a 



150 Intruding Bishops 

presbyter of Ephesus ; but, owing to the 
advice of the imperial officers, tlie council 
finally declared both elections invalid, on 
the ground of unlawful violence, and or- 
dered a new election. Both Bassianus 
and Stephen, however, were allowed to re- 
tain the episcopal rank, and a pension of 
two hundred gold pieces each was granted 
them out of the episcopal revenues. 

In the year 481 the deposed John Codo- 
natus, bishop of Antioch, was bribed, 
though canonically re -appointed by the 
Eastern bishops, to retire to the bishopric 
of Tyre, and Calandio quietly took pos- 
session of the apostolic see. 

Nonnus, bishop of Amid (505), had a 
chorepiscopus named Thomas, whom he 
sent to Constantinople to recall certain 
Amidenes, who had fled thither from the 
hostile Persians. Making good use of his 
opportunities and of the refugees, Thomas 
induced the Emperor Anastasius to compel 
the patriarch, Flavian II., to consecrate him 
bishop of Amid to the displacement of his 
diocesan. On the accession of Thomas, 
Nonnus was sent to fill the vacant see of 
Seleucia. 



Intruding Bishops 151 

In contempt of the rights of Pappolus, 
bishop of Chartres, Egidius, bishop of 
Eheims (565), empowered Promotus to as- 
sume the see of Chateaudun, a city in the 
diocese of Chartres. About the middle 
of the Yiith century Faramond was in- 
truded into the see of Maestricht to sup- 
plant the prelate Lambert, whose holy life 
was a perpetual rebuke to the luxurious 
and turbulent Church in that city. Two 
hundred years later the Emperor Michael 
drove Ignatius from the see of Constanti- 
nople, and intruded Photius in his place. 
The council of Constantinople (861) ap- 
proved this violent proceeding, but the 
pope espoused the cause of the deposed 
bishop, and the council of Rome (862) 
declared Photius a party excommunicate. 
Then Photius fulminated, and the council 
of Constantinople (866) decreed that Nic- 
olas I. (the pope) was unworthy of his 
oflSce. Photius was finally deposed by the 
emperor, and Ignatius restored. On the 
death of Ignatius (878), Photius was rein- 
stated and acknowledged by the pope as 
his ^^ brother in Christ." The papal mind 
presently underwent a change, and the 



152 Intruding Bishops 

successor of S. Peter declared that he ap- 
proved of the old sentence. A subsequent 
pope deposed him again and confined him 
in an Armenian convent, where he died in 
891. 

Early in the viilth century mention is 
made in the annals of Ireland of an abbot 
of Dublin who was also its bishop. "With 
an utter disregard of the native Celtic 
Church, the Danes, on the conquest of 
Ireland (1038), made one Dunan " high 
bishop," assigning the city of Dublin to 
him as a diocese. In 1477, Octavian, 
papal nuncio in Ireland, was intruded into 
the see of Armagh by the rescript of the 
pope, to the displacement of Edmund 
Connesburgh, the lawful primate, who sub- 
sequently died in exile in England. And 
after the accession of Elizabeth the pope 
invested one Creagh with primary ecclesi- 
astical jurisdiction in Ireland, when one 
Loftus was archbishop of Armagh and 
primate. 

The history of the papacy (251-1439) furnishes over forty 
instances of bishops intruding into the see of Rome. 



XVIII 
EPOCH-MAKEES 



CHAPTER XVIII 

EPOOH-MAKERS 

Novatian, the leader of the Puritan party 
in Rome, consecrated (251) bishop of Rome 
in opposition to Cornelius, the canonical 
bishop of the Church in that city, was the 
first sectarian. 

Hermogenes, archbishop of Csesarea, pre- 
pared (325) that immortal symbol which, 
with its later additions, is known as the 
Nicene Creed. Athanasius, bishop of Alex- 
andria (326-373), saved the Church from 
Arianism, and is called Pater orthodoxice. 
Ambrose, bishop of Milan (376-397), 
scholar, statesman, musician, poet, theo- 
logian, introduced congregational singing 
into the Western Church, and in his 
hymns, written in Latin, sacred song passed 
from the " tongue of Homer, Plato, and the 
New Testament into the stately Roman, 
the language of Virgil and Cicero " ; and 



156 Epocli-Makers 

he was the first to assert the power of the 
keys oyer the kings of the earth. Euse- 
bius, bishop of Yercelli {d. circ. 374) was 
the first Western prelate to unite the mo- 
nastic to the clerical life. 

Augustine, bishop of Hippo {d. 430), 
fixed the theology of the Latin Church, 
and, teaching unconditional election, irre- 
sistible grace, and final perseverance, pre- 
pared the way for Oalvinistic Protestantism 
and Jansenistic Catholicism. Leo the 
Great, bishop of Eome, saved (425-455) 
the imperial centre of civilization from 
ruthless annihilation, and laid the foun- 
dations of the spiritual supremacy of the 
Church. Synesius, bishop of Ptolemais, 
{d, 430), orator, philosopher, patriot, states- 
man, whose pedigree, extending through 
seventeen centuries, "could not be equalled 
in the history of mankind," is best known 
to-day by his ten beautiful hymns in praise 
of the Triune Godhead. 

Gregory the Great, bishop of Eome 
(590-604), introduced the Gregorian chant 
(Cantus Romanus)^ elaborated the Sacra- 
mentary of Leo the Great (chiefly Collects), 
and the Sacramentary of Gelasius (in which 



Epocli'BIakers 157 

" The Canon " first appears) into the Ser- 
vice Book, which gradually displaced all 
others in the Western Church, and at- 
tempted the conversion of England and 
the Latinization of the British Church. 

Venantius Fortunatus, bishop of Poitiers 
{d, 609), achieved immortality when, on 
occasion of the reception of certain relics, 
he struck off that world-famous hymn. Vex- 
ilia regis prodeunt^ " The royal banners 
forward go." Eligius, the royal goldsmith, 
philanthropist, abolitionist, bishop of Noy- 
on (645), wrote or preached a sermon (fiftj^- 
six octavo pages), descriptive of the char- 
acter of a good Christian, and worthy of 
repetition in every church and century, so 
full is it of exhortation to faith, repentance, 
righteousness, charity, prayer, sacramental 
duty, reverence, and adoration. Theodore, 
" the monk of Tarsus," archbishop of Can- 
terbury (670-690), was the first primate 
of all England, the "first Anglo-Eoman 
Metropolitan," the last of the Roman bish- 
ops, the creator of the English Church and 
the English nation, the first to secure le- 
gal provision (Kirk scot) for the English 
clergy, and the author of the first known 



158 Epoch-Makers 

*' Penitential." Chad, archbishop of York, 
and later, in Theodore's time, bishop of 
Mercia, was the first to localize the episco- 
pate, and is reckoned as the originator of 
the cathedral idea. Berthwald, the suc- 
cessor of Theodore, was the first to attempt 
to *' enforce the observance of Christianity 
by penal sanctions." Pope Vitalian (657- 
672) introduced organs for divine ser- 
vice. 

Andrew of Crete, a native of Damascus, 
archbishop of Crete {d. 732), left the world 
a priceless legacy in that striking Lenten 
hymn, " Christian ! dost thou see them ? " 
Egbert, archbishop of York (735-766), was 
the creator of " Church lands," and is fur- 
ther memorable for his Pontifical, one of 
the earliest Service Books of the English 
Church. Gregory II. (cZ. 731) initiated the 
temporal power of the papacy. Pope 
Stephen (755) asserted himseK as an inde- 
pendent prince. Boniface, the " apostle of 
Germany " {d. 755), a second Theodore of 
Canterbury, organized the German Church, 
developing its diocesan system, creating 
new sees, and changing jurisdictions. Hig- 
bert (787-S03) is only memorable as being 



Epoch-Makers 159 

the first and last archbishop to fill the 
archiepiscopal see of Lichfield. 

Leo III., in crowning Charlemagne em- 
peror of Rome (800), posed as God's vicar 
on earth, authorized and commissioned to 
confer crowns and kingdoms. Leo IV. 
(847), in writing to the sovereign, put his 
own name first, and omitted the word Dom- 
ino in the address. Nicholas I. (858) re- 
doubled the papal assumptions, claiming 
supremacy over National Churches as well 
as over the State, and an emperor held his 
bridle and walked by his side as he rode. 
He v/as the first pope to make public ap- 
peal to the Forged Decretals, John YIII. 
(875) assumed the power of disposing of 
imperial titles, deciding in favor of Charles 
the Bold and against Lewis the German, 
the hereditary prince ; and the next year 
he appointed a vicar apostolic and pri- 
mate of Gaul and Germany, when each 
National Church had its own metropol- 
itan! 

Sergius II. (904) inaugurated the '* por- 
nocracy." Dunstan, archbishop of Can- 
terbury (960-988), was the Cavour and the 
Bismarck of England, the unifier of the sev- 



160 Epoch-Makers 

eral states under the leadership of Wessex. 
The infamous Octavian (955-963) was the 
first pope to change his name on his acces- 
sion to S. Peter's chair, preferring to be 
known as John XII. John XV. (985-86) 
was the first pope to proclaim a saint. Al- 
fric, bishop of Wilton, and, later, arch- 
bishop of Canterbury, composed (990-91) 
two books of homilies for the use of the 
clergy, and enjoined an explanation of the 
Gospel, the Creed, and the Lord's Prayer 
on Sundays and holy-days. 

In the year 1054, Leo IX. being bishop 
of Rome, and Michael Cerularius patri- 
arch of Constantinople, the schism be- 
tween the Greek and the Roman Church, 
toward which events had been tending 
from the hour of the expulsion of Igna- 
tius, the patriarch, in 867, was finally con- 
summated. Victor 11. (1055-57) insisted 
on the restoration of the papal territories 
by Henry III., who also made him gov- 
ernor of all Italy. Nicholas 11. (1059) 
vested papal elections in the college of 
cardinals. In 1062 Anselm of Lucca as- 
cended to the papal chair, as Alexander 
IL, without regard to the imperial prerog- 



Epoch-Makers 161 

ative. In 1073 the confirmation of the 
emperor to a papal election was asked for 
the last time, and Hildebrand, wearing a 
royal cro^Ti containing the inscription, 
Corona regni de mami Dei, with the hate of 
the serf in his heart, and the intolerance of 
the Puritan in his soul, bent himself to the 
humiliation of kings and emperors, and to 
the divorcement of the clergy from their 
wives, claimed the world as his diocese, 
and sought, in the exaltation and purga- 
tion of the Church, the unification of so- 
ciety. Damiani, saint, cardinal, bishop, 
doctor of the Church the coadjutor of 
Gregory YII. (Hildebrand) in his aggres- 
sive policy, has been called " The austere 
reformer of the xith century," and is fur- 
ther noteworthy as the author of " the Dies 
IrcE of the individual life," the hymn be- 
ginning, Gravi me terrore pulsas vitce dies 
ultima — " Day of death ! " etc. Elsewhere, 
in this century, Archbishops Hanno and 
Adalbert (1065-1072) were playing the 
statesmen and misruling Germany. Lan- 
franc, archbishop of Canterbury (d, 1089), 
compassed the abolition of the slave-trade 
to Ireland, removed sees into prosperous 
11 



162 Epoch-Makers 

and growing towns, intruded Normans into 
the Anglican episcopate, but declined to 
acknowledge the over-lordship of the bish- 
op of Eome. Osmund, bishop of Salisbury 
(1087), compiled the first national Service 
Book (Sarum Missal)^ which gradually 
came into use in the other dioceses of 
England and Scotland, and an Anglican 
Liturgy was in vogue. 

At the opening of the xnth century 
Anselm, the earliest of the scholastic 
theologians, facile princeps among relig- 
/ious philosophers, the author, according 
to Father Ragey, of the celebrated cycle of 
poems known as the Mariale, and, above 
all, of the Ctcr Deus Homo, archbishop of 
Canterbury, had it out with the king on the 
subject of investiture, and, insisting on the 
decision of the Roman Synod of Lent, 
1099, wrested from the crown the conces- 
sion that the Church alone should confer 
the ring and staff, the clergy to do homage 
to the king, however, for their temporal- 
ities. William de Corbeuil (''Old Tur- 
moil ") who died in 1136, was the first 
archbishop of Canterbury who acknowl- 
edged himself to be a mere deputy of the 



Epocli'Mahers 163 

pope. Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, 
to whom the Church is indebted for the 
festival of Trinity Sunday, refused to al- 
low the jurisdiction of secular courts over 
the clergy, and, although his quarrel with 
Henry resulted in his death, his preten- 
sion ultimately prevailed, it being subse- 
quently settled that the Church should be 
free from secular jurisdiction and that ap- 
peals might be made to Rome. Adrian 
IV. {d, 1159), the only English pope, ini- 
tiated the long and bitter feud between 
the popes and the Hohenstaufen emperors, 
and (1158) donated Ireland to Henry II., 
Dunan, an Italian bishop, with Dublin as 
a see city, having been previously intrud- 
ed into the national Celtic Church. Peter 
Lombard, bishop of Paris {d, 1164), is im- 
mortal forever as the author of the Four 
Books of Sentences. 

Innocent III. (1198-1216), who arro- 
gated temporal and spiritual jurisdiction 
over the whole world, stands for the politi- 
cal independence of the pa,pal see and the 
spiritual supremacy of the Church. Gre- 
gory IX. (1227) earned eternal infamy as 
the founder of the Inquisition. Boniface 



164 Epoch-Makers 

VIII. (1296-1302), who claimed the title 
of Caesar and affected the royal purple, is- 
sued the bull JJnam sanctam, in which he 
declared it a necessary condition of the 
salvation of every human being that he 
should own himself subject to the Church 
of Rome. In England, Langton, arch- 
bishop of Canterbury {d. 1228), stood for 
England, as against the king, and for the 
National Church, as against the pope. And 
Grossetete, bishop of Lincoln {d. 1253), 
espousing the national side, protested 
against the encroachments of the papal 
see, and, refusing at the bidding of Rome 
to institute a mere child to a canonry at 
Lincoln, and denouncing the pontiff as 
*^a heretic and antichrist," sounded the 
note of defiance which no later pope was 
able to silence a outrance, 

Clement Y. (1305-1314) completed the 
canon law of the Church and initiated 
the " Babylonish Captivity." John XXIL 
(1316-34) appointed a special office for 
Trinity Sunday. Clement VII. (1378- 
1471), " the warrior bishop of Cambray," 
initiated the ^* Great Schism." 

Martin V. (1423) adorned Rome, re- 



Epocli'Makers 165 

stored churches, and erected public build- 
ings, and has been called '' Rome's third 
founder." Nicholas V. (1453-55), a bibli- 
ophile and patron of art, was a lover of 
scholars, and the Renaissance dates from 
his pontificate. Callixtus III. (1457) in- 
stituted the festival of the Transfiguration 
of our Lord. 

Julius III. (1505-13) is only noteworthy 
as a martial prelate, successful in the ex- 
tension and consolidation of the papal ter- 
ritories. Leo X. is chiefly remembered as 
the pope whose bull was burned by one 
Martin Luther, and whose unwisdom in 
dealing with the new movement did much 
to give it form and substance. Paul III., 
Julius III., and Paul IV. are to be credit- 
ed with the Catechism of Trent Cranmer, 
archhishop of Canterbury {d, 1556), repu- 
diated the papal supremacy, translated the 
Scriptures into the vernacular, and recon- 
structed the services of the Church. The 
bull of Pius V. (1569), excommunicating 
Elizabeth, gave rise to the schism which, 
separating the party of the Eoman obe- 
dience from the Church of England, has 
not yet been healed. Carlo Borromeo, 



166 Epoch'Makers 

archbishop of Milan and cardinal (1538- 
84), was one of the reforming prelates of the 
Latin Church, whose example and efforts 
instituted a reign of charity and righteous- 
ness in a diocese noted for its disorder 
and scandals. In 1589 the archbishop of 
Moscow erected the church of Russia into 
an independent patriarchate. 

In 1622 Gregory XV. founded the Con- 
gregatio de propaganda Jide, which has ever 
since been one of the most potent mission- 
ary forces in the world. Cornelius Jansen 
{d. 1638), after a life devoted to the study 
of the works of the African Augustine, em- 
bodied the result of his studies in a learned 
work entitled Augustinics, which, published 
after his death, fairly rent the Eoman 
Church in twain, exciting the fiercest 
animosity of the Jesuits, incurring the 
censures, excommunications, bulls, briefs, 
and rescripts of four popes (1642-1713), 
and giving rise to a Jansenist Church 
in Holland (1723), with bishops of its 
own, claiming membership in the Roman 
Church, but disowned by every pope in 
turn. 

Clement XIV. (1773) suppressed the 



Epoch-Makers 167 

Jesuit Order, numbering some 20,000 
men, and its clerical members were or- 
dered to fall into the ranks of the secular 
clergy.^ 

1 See Chapters xv., xvi., xix. for other epoch-makers. 



XIX 

MISSIONARY BISHOPS 



CHAPTEE XIX 

MISSIONAEY BISHOPS 

At the head of the long line of pioneer 
bishops, introducing institutional Chris- 
tianity into strange and distant lands, 
stands the figure of S. Paul, son of Simon 
of Cyrene (Mark xv. 21) and brother of 
Eufus (Rom. xvi. 13), who, in the year 
44, established churches in the southern 
part of Asia Minor — in Pamphylia, Pisid- 
ia, Lycaonia, and Cilicia ; and six years la- 
ter had evangelized Central Asia Minor — 
Phrygia, Galatia, and Troas — as well as 
Macedonia and Greece; and within the 
next seven had extended the Church along 
the coasts of Asia Minor fronting Greece, 
and founded the Church of Ephesus ; and 
who, subsequently, passed even into Spain, 
preaching on his way at Crete and organ- 
izing congregations there. S. Peter would 
seem (1 S. Peter i. 1) to have taken the 



172 Missionary Bishops 

Gospel into the north of Asia Minor — 
into Cappadocia, Pontus, and Bithynia. 
S. Jude is said to have introduced it into 
Mesopotamia. S. Mark founded the Church 
in Egypt. 8. Thomas was the apostle of 
Parthia. 8. Andrew was missionary bish- 
op to 8cytliia. 8. Bartholomew was the first 
bishop to make his way to India. 8. Mat- 
thew labored in Ethiopia. 8. 8imon (The 
Zealot) was crucified in Persia. 8ix of the 
seven Asian churches mentioned in The 
Apocalypse owed their origin, in all prob- 
ability, to the efforts of 8. John. 8. James 
the Less, the " brother of the Lord," au- 
thor of an epistle to the twelve tribes, not 
one of the original apostles, was the first 
bishop of Jerusalem. 

Pothinus, imprisoned, at the age of 
ninety, in the course of the persecutions 
that took place under Marcus Aurelius 
(lGl-180), is in repute as the founder of 
the Church of Lyons. 

Saturninus, in the next century, was the 
first bishop of Toulouse. Dionysius (8. 
Denys), martyred in 272, is said by Greg- 
ory of Tours {d, 694) to have been the 
first to preach the Gospel to the Paris- 



Missionary Bishops 173 

ians, and is styled " The Apostle of the 
Gauls." It was Clovis whose shout, Mont- 
joie Saint'Denys ! originated the battle- 
cry of the French kings, Monfjoie Saint- 
Deny s ! Lucian, one of the companions 
of Dionysius on his missionary tour to 
Gaul, having preached the faith to the 
heathen of the neighborhood, fell a victim 
to their prejudices in the year 290, and is 
known as "The Apostle of Beauvais," 
where he was bishop. 

Gregory the Illuminator, a scion of the 
reigning family, has the credit of having 
introduced Christianity into Armenia (al- 
though some of the original apostolic col- 
lege are said to have sown the seed there 
in the beginning), and, having converted 
and baptized the king, he was consecrated 
bishop over the whole of Armenia by Le- 
ontius of C^esarea (302) ; and Armenia is 
on record as having been the first country 
in which Christianity was adopted as the 
national religion. Theophilus, who was 
present at the Nicene Council, was known 
there as '^ The Bishop of the Goths " ; but 
Christianity had been introduced among 
them by captives whom they had carried 



174 Missionary Bishops 

off lialf a century or more before. His 
successor, Ulpliilas (341-381), who trans- 
lated the Bible into the Gothic tongue and 
Avas the Moses of his people, has, perhaps, 
a better right to the title " The Apostle of 
the Goths." Frumentius, whose early his- 
tory reads like a romance, it was so full of 
travel and rare good fortune, having built 
a place of worship for the few Christian 
folk among the Hamyrites of Arabia Felix, 
over whom he had been placed as regent, 
was consecrated bishop by Athanasius, 
and on his return translated the Scriptures 
into the vernacular and lived to see the 
Church rapidly extending from Abyssinia 
to Ethiopia and Nubia. The Church thus 
founded by " The Apostle of the Abyssin- 
ians," who died 360, " continues to this 
day, subject to the see of Alexandria. Its 
metropolitan is always an Egyptian monk, 
chosen and consecrated by the Coptic pa- 
triarch." Theophilus, a native of the isl- 
and of Diu (at the entrance of the Arabian 
Gulf), having been sent as a hostage to the 
imperial court, was there educated as an 
Arian priest, and, on his return to his own 
country, having been consecrated bishop 



Blissionary Bishops 175 

by Eusebius of Nicomedia, labored as a 
missionary in the East Indies {circ. 350), 
where he is said to have found isolated 
Christian congregations, remains of an 
older Christianity. Moses, a solitary, who 
was elevated to the episcopate 372, was, 
perhaps, the first bishop to labor among 
the Saracens. 

Martin of Tours, who died at the open- 
ing of the next century, was not, indeed, 
a pioneer of Christianity, but for his heroic 
treatment of the pagan temples, altars, and 
idols that survived the influence of his 
predecessors, he well deserves to be en- 
rolled among the missionary bishops of 
the Church. In the year 431 Palladius, a 
deacon from Eome, entered Ireland as its 
first bishop ; but, failing in his mission, he 
was succeeded the next year by the son of 
Calpurnius, the deacon, and grandson of 
Potitus, a priest of the town of Bonavem 
Tabernise, and to Patrick, indeed, belongs 
the title of '^Apostle of Ireland." Eemi- 
gius (8. Eemi), who was elected to the see 
of Rheims (457) when only twenty-two 
years of age, a man of great erudition and 
illustrious sanctity, is styled " The Great 



176 Missionary Bishops 

Apostle of the French, " because, at the 
baptism of King Olovis, he also received 
into the Church '' three thousand men of 
the Frank army, and many women and 
children." His day is October 1st. 

The Yith century was not prolific in mis- 
sionary bishops. Kentigern, the foster- 
child of the hermit, consecrated bishop by 
a solitary Irish prelate, labored with great 
success among the Scots and Britons scat- 
tered through the district of Cumbria, 
dressing in goat-skin, which he wore un- 
der a white linen alb, lodging in a cave, 
living on bread and cheese and milk, and 
carrying an office-book in one hand and 
a plain pastoral staff in the other ; subse- 
quently became bishop of Glasgow, and lat- 
er, on expulsion from his see, founded the 
monastery and the bishopric of S. Asaph ; 
dying, in the year 601, at an extreme old 
age. Augustine, the Roman abbot, of the 
Italian mission, who landed at Kent, 596, 
has been called '' The Apostle of the Eng- 
lish People " ; but his work scarce entitles 
him to such a niche in the temple of fame, 
for three out of the four kingdoms into 
which he introduced the Latin Church re- 



Missionary Bishops 177 

lapsed into their old idolatry within the 
space of forty years, and only the restora- 
tion of King Eadbald to the faith he had 
once professed saved the Church of Kent.^ 
Paulinus, the first bishop of York, com- 
passed the conversion (627) of King Ed- 
win and the nobility of Northumbria, and 
is said to have baptized 10,000 souls in 
one day. Birinus (635), another Italian 
missionary, finding the West Saxons to be 
pagans, labored among them with such 
success that he presently baptized their 
king and crowds of less distinguished peo- 
ple, and established his see at Dorchester. 
Aidan, a monk from lona, with his head- 
quarters at Lindisfarne, effected the recon- 
version of Northumbrian which, on the 
death of Edwin, had reverted to its orig- 
inal paganism, and died 651, honored as 
" The Apostle of Northumbria." Eelix, a 
Burgundian, bishop of Dummock (now 
Dunwich, in Suffolk), did a memorable 
work (650) among the East Angles. Fi- 
nan, the successor of Aidan, and, like him, 
an Irish monk, baptized nearly the whole 

1 Columba (521-597), '* The Apostle of the Highlanders," 
a lover of the saintly Kentigem, was not a bishop. 
12 



178 Missionary Bishops 

of Essex, Middlesex, Hertfordshire, and 
Mercia. Cnthbert, also an Irishman, and 
cenobite, missionary, prior, hermit, and 
bishop of Lindisfarne, and who died at 
the hour of matins, March 20, 687, preach- 
ing peace, obedience, and self-sacrifice, is 
claimed as '* The Apostle of the Lowlands." 
On the Continent Emmeran, a French 
bishop of Aquitania, resigned his see to 
complete the conversion of the inhabitants 
of Bavaria, and, after three years' arduous 
and successful labors in and out of their 
towns and villages, received the martyr's 
crown. Rupert, bishop of Worms, also 
left his diocese to another that he might 
take part in the evangelization of Bavaria, 
and was succeeded by Corbinian, another 
Frenchman, remarkable for his holiness 
and the depth of his sowing. Amandus, 
'' The Apostle of the Netherlands," conse- 
crated (630) by order of Clothaire II., but 
without a diocese, selected Belgic Gaul as 
the field of his labors, and, after an abun- 
dant harvest in Flanders and a dishearten- 
ing effort among the Sclavonic races in 
Germany, was forced to accept the see of 
Maestricht (647), which, three years lat- 



Missionary Bishops 179 

er, he resigned to preach to the pagan 
Basques. Eligius (S. Eloy), a goldsmith 
by trade, bishop of Noyon from 641, also 
won great victories among the savage 
Frieslanders. Audomar (S. Omer), out of 
the Irish monastery at Luxeuil, bishop of 
Tarvanne, eradicated idolatry out of his 
diocese, which extended from Boulogne as 
far as the Scheldt. Barbatus, an Italian, 
appointed bishop of Benevento, in Italy, in 
663, renowned for his preaching and his 
knowledge of the Bible, is said to have de- 
stroyed every vestige of paganism in his 
whole jurisdiction. The restless and am- 
bitious Wilfrid, archbishop of York, on his 
way to Rome to seek the pope's support, 
driven by a storm to the coast of Frisia, 
evangelized that country (677-678), and, 
baptizing the reigning duke and thousands 
of his subjects, earned for himself the 
name of '^Apostle of the Frisians.*' ^ 

At the opening of the viiith century the 
chief figure in the missionary field was 

1 Columbanus, '* The Apostle of Burgundy" {d. 615) ; 
Gall, ''The Apostle of Switzerland" (590-640) ; Fursa, the 
Irish missionary to the Saxons of East Anglia {d. 650) ; 
and Kilian, another Irish missionary (650-689), " The 
Apostle of Franconia," were not bishops. 



180 Missionary Bishops 

Willibrord, the Anglo-Saxon, who suc- 
ceeded (690) to the evangelistic labors of 
Wilfrid, and, as bishop of Utrecht, spent 
fifty years among the Frisians and beyond 
the Danish frontier. Winfrid, another 
Englishman, consecrated (723) by the pope 
as Boniface, illustrious forever as ''The 
Apostle of Germany," was also unwearied 
in his efforts to evangelize the Frisians, 
and, a year before his death (754), resigned 
the archiepiscopal see of Mayence to spend 
his last days among the heathen to whom 
his youthful energies had been devoted; 
and, itinerating through Frisia, converting 
and baptizing thousands of idolaters and 
destroying their temples, was presently 
despatched, with his fifty-two assistants, 
by a furious heathen mob. Willehad, an- 
other Anglo - Saxon, from Northumbria, 
who began his missionary work in Doc- 
cum, where Boniface was murdered, and 
was invested, by Charlemagne, with the 
bishopric of Bremen two years before his 
death, had such success in christianizing 
the Frisians, among whom he lived for 
thirty-five years, that he was called " The 
Apostle of Saxony." Hubert, bishop of 



Missionary Bishops 181 

Liege (d 727), bore the true light into the 
dark forest of the Ardennes, where he had 
hunted in his youth, and his labors served 
to invest him with the name of " The Apos- 
tle of the Ardennes." Vergil (d, 780), an 
Irishman, bishop of Saltzburg, introduced 
Christianity into Carinthia about 770. 
Rumold, another Irish bishop, made Christ 
known in Brabant, and was murdered (775) 
by a party whom he had rebuked for viola- 
tion of the seventh commandment. 

The ixth century produced two mission- 
ary bishops whose labors and sacrifices 
entitle them to the highest honor. Ans- 
gar, a Frank, longing for a martyr's crown, 
which, however, he never obtained, under- 
took, in 830, the conversion of Sweden, 
and, during the thirty-five years that fol- 
lowed, w^as plundered by pirates, dispos- 
sessed of the cathedral, the monastery, and 
the library he had founded, expelled from 
the country by the Norman invaders, aban- 
doned by the clergy he could no longer 
support, turned from the door of the en- 
vious prelate of Bremen, housed on the 
farm of a wealthy widow, and lived to see 
himself bishop of the conjoined sees of 



182 Missionary Bishops 

Bremen and Hamburg, and, after twelve 
years' absence from his chosen field, the 
head once more of the Scandinavian mis- 
sion, and the Church spreading unmolest- 
ed in Sweden and Denmark. "While this 
" Apostle of the North " was thus " filling 
up that which was behind of the sufferings 
of Christ, for His Body's sake," two Greek 
monks, one of whom alone lived to become 
a missionary bishop, were evangelizing 
Moravia, Bulgaria, Servia, and Pannonia, 
and before Methodius (who, with his 
brother Cyril, had been forced by political 
considerations to join the Roman Church 
and been elevated to the episcopate by the 
pope) had finished his course a Sclavonic 
alphabet had been invented, the Sclavonic 
liturgy established, the Bible translated 
into the vernacular, and Christianity in- 
troduced even into Bohemia.^ 

In the xth century Unni, archbishop of 
Bremen, took advantage of the German 
conquest of the Danes (934) to re-estab- 
lish Christianity in Denmark, and died in 

1 In 1864 the one thousandth anniversary of the found- 
ing of the Sola vie churches was celebrated in Bohemia and 
Moravia, where the brothers are honored as " The Apostles 
of the Sclavs." 



Missionary Bishops 183 

Sweden (936), having restored the churches 
of Jutland. Hierotheus, a Greek bishop 
from Constantinople (950), seems to have 
been the first to essay the conversion of 
the Hungarians ; but the Eoman Church 
soon took possession of the field, and 
Anastasius (954-1044) is popularly known 
as '' The Apostle of the Hungarians." Adal- 
bert, archbishop of Prague, on whom the 
responsibilities of the episcopal office sat 
so heavily that he was never seen to smile 
after his consecration, travelled as a mis- 
sionary into Poland and founded the 
Church in Dantzic, and is styled " The 
Apostle of Prussia " (Dantzic being on the 
confines of that country), and was murdered 
(997) at the instigation of a pagan priest. 
Guthebald, a missionary from the Church 
of England {circ, 990), seems to have been 
the first prelate in Norway, and to merit 
the title of a missionary bishop because of 
his work in Schonen. 

In the early part of the following cen- 
tury (1001) Siegfried, archdeacon of York, 
appears as a missionary bishop in Swe- 
den, and of him it is recorded that he 
often left his diocese of Wexia to preach 



184 Missionary Bishops 

the Gospel to the pagans of West-Goth- 
land. About the same time, John, another 
emissary of the English Church, a Scotch- 
man, is said to have evangelized Sclavonia. 
Grimkele, also an English priest, in the 
retinue of King Olaus, on his return from 
England, was appointed bishop of Dront- 
heim, and abetted the monarch in his 
efforts to eradicate idolatry in Norway, 
Orkney, and Iceland. William, another 
English priest, touching at Denmark, in 
the suite of Canute the Great, asked to be 
left there as a missionary, and, after an 
abundant harvest among the pagans, was 
assigned to a bishopric at Eoschild, where 
he died 1067. Iceland, evangelized by 
English and Irish missionaries, reckons Is- 
leif, whose see was fixed at Skaaholt (1056), 
as its first diocesan bishop. And in 1055 
institutional Christianity was established 
in Greenland, by the appointment of one 
Albert, by the prelate of Hamburg-Bremen, 
as its first bishop.^ 

1 '* The last glimpse of this ancient Church of Green- 
land is seen in 1408. Religion seems to have expired soon 
after with the swarm of Icelandic and Norwegian settlers 
who gave place to the present Esquimaux." — Hardwick's 
Church of the Middle Ages, 



3Iissionary Bishops 185 

At the opening of the xiith century the 
Church put forth heroic efforts to compass 
the conversion of the savage Wends in 
North Germany, and Bishop Benno of 
Misina {d. 1106), Bishop Vicelin of Olden- 
burg {d. 1154), Bishop Everanod of Rat- 
zeburg (from 1154), and Bishop Berno of 
Schwerin (from 1158) may be called the 
apostles of the Wends, their zeal and suf- 
ferings being seldom equalled. The fierce 
Pomeranians yielded only to the intrepid- 
ity and social grandeur of Otto, bishop of 
Bamberg, who, travelling in princely style, 
convinced the natives that he was not seek- 
ing pecuniary reward, and whose " firm- 
ness without egotism ; earnestness with- 
out severity ; gentleness and placability 
without weakness ; and glowing zeal with- 
out fanaticism," overcame the heathen 
prejudices, and (1124, 1128) thousands 
were added to the Church. Vicelin, bish- 
op of Oldenburg, devoted thirty years of 
his life (1124-1154) to the evangelization 
of Holstein in the kingdom of Denmark. 
Absalom, archbishop of Lund, planted the 
cross in the island of Rugen, in the Baltic, 
and in 1168 the pirates and robbers who 



186 Missionary Bishops 

constituted that community consented to 
receive baptism. Henry, an Englishman, 
bishop of Upsala, followed in the wake of 
Eric, King of Denmark, and, invading Fin- 
land with the Gospel, sealed his mission 
with his blood (1151), and has received 
the title of " Apostle of the Finns." Mein- 
hart, a canon of Segeberg, in Holstein, 
must have the credit of having introduced 
the Gospel (1168) into Livonia, a country 
on the Baltic, and of the Church he founded 
there, at Uerkiill, he became the bishop. 

But one missionary bishop of the apos- 
tolic type can be discerned among the 
years of the xiiith century, and he was a 
Franciscan, John de Monte-Corvino, who, 
learning of the spiritual condition of the 
Mongols from Marco Polo, who had just 
returned from China, undertook their 
evangelization, built tw^o churches in Cam- 
balu (Pekin), the residence of the Khan, 
baptized about six thousand natives, and 
translated the Psalms and the New Testa- 
ment into the Mongol language, and, after 
twelve years of solitary labor (1303), was 
appointed archbishop of Cambalu. In 
1368 the Mongols were driven from China 



Missionary Bishops 187 

and the Church was annihilated. The real 
apostle of the Prussians (originally evan- 
gelized by Adalbert of Prague, 997) is said 
to have been Christian the Cistercian, 
of the Pomeranian monastery Oliva, who, 
in 1209, was baptized for his dead prede- 
cessors, became bishop 1214, and died, 
1244, the regenerator of the Prussians liv- 
ing between the "Weichsel and Memel. 

Lithuania is on record as being the last 
European country to receive the Christian 
religion, and it must have been a memor- 
able spectacle when the people, following 
the example of their grand duke, and clad 
in woollen garments, the gifts of their 
sponsors, pressed in crowds (1386) to be 
baptized. Though no bishop is mentioned 
as concerned in this national conversion, 
an episcopal see was presently founded at 
Wilna. 

The xvth century produced " The Apostle 
of the Indians," the Spanish Bishop Bar- 
tolome de Las Casas, who visited Spain six 
times to intercede at court for the protec- 
tion of the hunted natives of the New 
World, and was seventy-three years of age 
(1547) before he had compassed the abol- 



188 Missionary Bishops 

ition of Indian slavery in America. Born 
1474, and living until the year 1566, lie de- 
voted the whole term of his earthly exist- 
ence to the conversion of these newly dis- 
covered heathen. 

The xvith century gave birth to Jose de 
Anchieta, '' The Apostle of Brazil." 

As products of the xviiith century we 
have Bishop Berkeley {d. 1753), " The Apos- 
tle of the Bermudas," a man of the greatest 
" understanding, knowledge, innocence, and 
humility," who thought to found a col- 
lege at the Bermudas for the education of 
a clergy for '^ converting the savages to 
Christianity " ; Bishop Seabury (1784), the 
apostle of Anglican Christianity in Amer- 
ica ; and Dr. Charles Inglis, consecrated 
(while rector of Trinity Church, New York) 
August 12, 1787, first colonial bishop, for 
Nova Scotia, and who labored twenty-nine 
years throughout a jurisdiction including 
all the British possessions in the New 
World, from Newfoundland to Lake Su- 
perior — a diocese three times as large as 
the whole of Great Britain. 



XX 

EPISGOPiE 



**Lot not a bishop, priest, or deacon put away his own 
wife under pretence of religion ; but if he put her away, 
let him be excommunicated ; and, if he persist, let him be 
deposed." — Apoat. Canons^ v. 



CHAPTER XX 
EPISCOP^ 

Nothing is known of S. Peter's wife. 
Neander thinks he has found her name in 
1 Peter v. 13, where he would read : 
'' StjiKxltcta^ who is in Babylon, saluteth 
you." That he was in the habit of taking 
her with him on his missionary tours we 
know on the authority of a fellow-bishop 
in 1 Cor. ix. 5. His mother-in-law cer- 
tainly lived with him in Capernaum, and 
we are assured that he was greatly dis- 
tressed at the illness which overtook her 
while he was in the service of Jesus of 
Nazareth. His daughter is known in his- 
tory or legend as Petronilla. 

Among the bishops in attendance at the 
Nicene Council was a prelate from the isl- 
and of Cyprus, a holy, simple-minded man, 
who tended his own sheep, and sheared 
them in the season. Legend has been busy 



192 Episcopce 

with his name, and many are the wonders 
that are told of good old Bishop Spyridion. 
He was a married man, and, although his 
wife, perhaps, never did anything worthy 
of commemoration, his daughter Irene lives, 
a pious, gentle, comely woman, and so 
honorable that to guard some costly orna- 
ment entrusted to her keeping she caused 
it to be buried with her shortly after. 
When wanted, the bracelet was not forth- 
coming, and the pastor of souls and of 
sheep was accused of having appropriated 
it. To save her father's reputation, this 
daughter did the only thing she could : — 
she came to life again, pointed out the 
place where the trinket was secreted, and 
then lay down once more to sleep until the 
morning of the resurrection. 

Gregory I. married, while yet a heathen, 
a child of Christian parents (Philtatius and 
Gorgonia), whose piety was of such in- 
tense and transfiguring a character that no 
one living in her house could fail to be as 
good as he could be. The paganism of the 
husband was no match for the regenerative 
graces of the wife, and he was soon bap- 
tized in the Catholic faith. A few years 



Episcopce 193 

later (329 a.d.) he was elected to the bish- 
opric of Nazianzus. The fruits of this 
marriage were Gorgonia, his first-born ; 
Gregory, afterward bishop of Sasima, then 
coadjutor bishop of Nazianzus, for the re- 
lief of his father, and finally bishop of Con- 
stantinople ; and another son, Caesarius, 
who rose to eminence at the court of Con- 
stantinople. The two youngest children 
were born after their father's elevation to 
the episcopate, and Nonna, their mother, 
consorted with him to the end. 

Hilary, of pagan parentage and high so- 
cial standing, bishop of Poictiers (350- 
367), '' the Athanasius of the West," was 
not converted until he had reached ripe 
manhood, and, when he was baptized, it 
was in company with his wife and his 
daughter Abra, who continued with him 
until death " de-parted " them, as a letter 
from him shows. 

Gregory of Nyssa, the brother of Basil 
the Great, married somewhat early in life 
one Theosebeia, of whom another Gregory 
(Gregory Theologos, bishop of Nazianzus, 
and son of Gregory I., also bishop, in his 
day, of the same see) wrote a little later, 
13 



194 Episcopce 

styling her '^ the priestess, the yokefellow, 
and the equal of a priest." This pious, 
exemplary woman was living in the year 
381, and, in the meantime, her husband 
had been made bishop of Nyssa (371) and 
at the date of the sessions of the Second 
General Council (381) had delivered the 
sermon at the consecration of Gregory 
Nazianzen as bishop of Constantinople, 
and had been appointed by the synod 
patriarch of the churches of Pontus, in 
conjunction with Helladius, and visited the 
churches of Babylon and Jerusalem. 

Juliana was the wife of Memorius, an 
Italian prelate, bishop of Capua (400), and 
their son Julian became bishop of Eclana. 
A letter (ci.) from the famous bishop of 
Hippo to this prelate is extant, in which 
he speaks of Julian, the son, as his col- 
league and deacon, and commends to the 
shadow of the wings of the Most High " the 
father and the mother, bound in the same 
brotherhood with your sons, being all the 
children of the one Father." 

Julian, the son of this prelate of Capua, 
married, while 'Sector" in his father's 
church, a most winsome v/oman, the daugh- 



Episcopce 195 

ter of ^milius, the bishop of Beneven- 
tum, to whom her parents had given the 
name of la. Paulinus is said to have com- 
posed the epithalamium on the occasion. 
In the year 410 Julian became a deacon, 
and shortly after was raised to the see of 
Eclana. 

Synesius, a disciple of Hypatia, a pagan 
philosopher, a married man, was elect- 
ed bishop of Ptolemais, but when it was 
demanded of him that he should separate 
from his wife, he stoutly refused, saying 
he was willing to give up his estates, the 
chase and all his wonted pleasures, but 
that marriage was for life, and that he 
would decline the bishopric before he 
would put away his own flesh and blood. 
His love and loyalty carried the day, and 
he was consecrated in spite of his instinct- 
ive obedience to the apostolical canon. 

A little later, in the same century, Ger- 
manus, an advocate, one of the six 
*' dukes" of Gaul, a lover of the chase, on 
attaining a suitable age married Eusfachia, 
one of the fashionable women of the day, 
and shortly after was elevated to the epis- 
copate of the city of Auxerre. 



196 Episcopce 

In the year 473 there was born of wealthy 
parents ORe Ennodius, who, on losing his 
patrimony through the invasion of the 
Visigoths, went to live with an aunt in 
Milan, who treated him as though he had 
been her own son, and supplied him with 
every luxury and the means of self-indul- 
gence. On the death of this aunt, poor, 
homeless, and unused to labor, he married, 
most opportunely, a young lady of family 
and fortune, and he was saved from beg- 
gary and starvation. Thinking himself 
called to serve God in the ministry of the 
Church, or incited thereto by ambition, he 
took orders, renounced his marriage, and 
forced the woman who had rescued him 
from destitution to retire to a convent and 
take the veil. After a while he was re- 
warded with the bishopric of Pavia. 

Iberia was wife to Euricius, the eleventh 
bishop of Limoges, some time in the same 
century, and her epithalamium was written 
by the celebrated Latin author Sidonius 
Apollinaris. Their son was Ommatius, 
the bishop of Tours. They finally retired 
to a monastery, where they ended their 
days. 



Episcopce 197 

The wife of Gennobandus, first bishop 
of Laou, was a niece of the metropolitan 
Eemigins, bishop of Rheims {circ. 500). 
Gregory, the sixteenth bishop of Autun, 
whose wife was Armentaria, was the 
grandfather of Gregory, the bishop of 
Tours (573-594), and of all the preceding 
bishops of Tours there were but five that 
were not among his ancestors. 

About 515, one Florentius of Lyons, 
a senator and married man, was elected 
to fill the vacant see of Geneva. Eushing 
home to break the news to his wife and 
get her advice, she exclaimed '' Cease to 
desire this bishopric. In my womb I car- 
ry a bishop of your own flesh." The see 
was declined, and forty years later their 
son was known as Nicetius the bishop. 

In 564 there died Leontius II., the bish- 
op of Bordeaux, who had lived long in the 
estate of matrimony, and whose wife was 
the gentle-woman Placidina, of the line 
of Sidonius ApoUinaris, the poet, saint, 
and bishop. Toward the close of the cen- 
tury the city of Vienne mourned the death 
of Euphrasia, a woman of noble birth and 
great wealth, the widov/ of Naamatus, their 



198 Episcopce 

late bishop, who, after her bereavement, 
had devoted herself and her estate to the 
cause of *^ the exile, the widow, the cap- 
tive, and the poor." 

Doda was the name of the wife of Ar- 
nulf, mayor of the palace, ancestor of the 
Carolingians, who, in the year 612, was 
consecrated to the episcopate of Metz. 

Severus, bishop of Ravenna, in the xith 
century, had a wife and daughter, and 
Herbert of Milan was a married man. 

The first resident bishop of Iceland, Is- 
lief, the son of Gizur the "White, the suc- 
cessful evangelist, had a wife named Dalla, 
who brought him half the land whereon 
he dwelt, and who not infrequently com- 
plained of the difficulty of making both 
ends meet on the meagre income of the 
farm. On his death (1080) his son Gizur 
succeeded to the vacant bishopric, and his 
wife, too, seems to have been a brave and 
pious woman, who, when he lay ill unto 
death, covered with ulcers and unable to 
sleep or rest, desired him to tell her what 
he would like his friends to ask for him in 
prayer, so sure was she of God's gracious 
presence. But this old man of seventy- 



Episcopce 199 

five made no other response than that they 
should petition that the Lord's chastise- 
ments might be blessed to him. He left a 
daughter behind him. Paul, the grandson 
of the Saemund who made the collection 
of the elder Edda, the occupant, one hun- 
dred years later, of the same see of Skal- 
holt, boasted of his wife Herdisa, of whom 
the historian writes : " She was to him and 
to the diocese great support and strength. 
So great was her economy and manage- 
ment that before she had been there many 
years there reigned a superfluity of all 
things necessary, so that they could enter- 
tain at a time a hundred guests, besides 
their own servants, who numbered eighty 
men." 

It is not known that the apostle of Ire- 
land was a married man, but there is no 
question that he was the son of a deacon 
and the grandson of a priest ; and, apply- 
ing to the poet-laureate of Ireland, one 
Duffack by name, for material for a 
bishop, he said : " I wish a man of one 
wife, unto whom hath been born one only 
child." Cormac, the fighting bishop, the 
bishop-king of Munster (m^. 897), was a 



200 Episcopce 

married man, and his wife's name was 
Gormlaithy who survived him and took two 
more husbands in due time. The cele- 
brated '^Conn of the poor," an eminent 
member of the community at Clonmacnois 
(1022-1128), and also bishop of Clonmac- 
nois, was a married man, and the son, the 
grandson, and the great-grandson of clergy- 
men. Celsus, who died (1129), archbishop 
of Armagh, was a grandson of Archbishop 
Moeliosa of Armagh, and the see had been 
held by eight married men in succession. 
Boniface, archbishop of Canterbury (1250), 
was a married man, although Matthew 
Paris did not see fit to record the name 
of the spouse. Charles Maguire, canon 
chorister in Armagh and in the bishopric 
of Clogher, parson of Iniskeen, deacon of 
Lough Erne, and coadjutor of the bishop 
of Clogher, a prelate of the Celtic Irish 
Church (1498), was a married man. Dev- 
ereux, bishop of Ferns, and James Fitzmau- 
rice, bishop of Ardfert and Aghadoe (1563), 
were also men with wives and children. 

Fitz-Jocelin, archbishop of Canterbury 
{cL 1191) was the son of Jocelin, bishop of 
Salisbury. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




